“Children and adults are never solitary individuals, immune to the social and cultural forces around them. Gaining understanding of the cultural norms and assumptions we bring as teachers, as well as those brought by each of our students in our classes, is an often difficult task but is essential to providing a learning space that is welcoming and caring and sets up all students for academic and social success.”

Everyone is affected by the social and cultural forces that happen around them, but humans are selfish beings. When teachers walk into a classroom they tend to feel as though they are the only person in the room going through anything difficult, and it doesn’t help that children are so resilient that you can’t always tell if something is wrong. The children that walk into our classrooms are people and that means they are affected by our society in the same way that we, as teachers, can be affected.

The scary part, for me, is that they learn from us.

They see my reactions to the world and my reactions to society and they become affected by the choices I make. They see how their classmates are affected by society and empathize with them without realizing that they are empathizing. Our students are constantly learning in the same way that we are and knowing how our presence and reactions can affect their outlook on society is important to be aware of.