With any profession, there is bound to be stereotypes. Society puts these ideas about certain races, genders and religions in order to group people together. For example, being a server, I have come to the general realization that the majority of African American people are cheap because they usually do not tip over 10-15%. Sometimes I will receive even 5% on a bill. Because this consistently happens not only to me, but to my co-workers as well, some people dread waiting on African Americans. This does not mean that we are racist, it means that we have a pre conceived notion of what to expect when the bill comes because of previous instances with that certain race.
I was wondering why this article mainly focused on Asians because stereotyping, especially in schools, is so evident. “It is apparent that there exists a harmful homogenization of nearly 3 billion people belonging to cultures as contrasting and conflicting as the Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and many others—all thrown into a single cultural basket labeled Asian”, as said in Kuma’s Cultural Stereotypes article. This is completely accurate in my opinion because as a Caucasian female, I put the “Asian” people in the same category. It can only assume that this is beyond frustrating from their point of view because they are being called something that they are not. I know that I would be offended if someone just assumed my cultural background and being incorrect about my ancestral line.
I was very surprised to learn that Confucius actually had written that “the teacher does not always have to be more knowledgeable than the pupil; and the pupil is not necessarily always less learned than the teacher.” It is perceived in the United States that all of the Chinese people are always obedient especially in the academic setting. However, teachers have come forward with evidence disproving this “theory” by saying that Chinese students can be “extremely active and even aggressive”. I cannot see Chinese students doing this because from my experience they have been quiet and obedient in the classroom. For example, when I was a senior in high school I taught a sixth grade Reading and Language Arts class. One Chinese student had transferred in during the middle of the semester. She was very quiet and did not take part in class discussions unless she was specifically called on. In the article it says that there is the stereotype that Chinese students “do not take active part in class discussions because of their cultural disposition”. I am not sure if this is true or not but because I have only had experience with teaching and observing one student that was Chinese, that is unfortunately my viewpoint on that culture. I need to change this as I am becoming a teacher of TESOL.
“In order to understand Asian students’ communication patterns in the classroom, we need to take into account, besides cultural beliefs, factors such as “the relevance of the topic under discussion, the instructor’s presentation of the material, the students’ familiarity with the subject, the students’ motivation to participate, the students’ anxiety and tolerance of risk-taking, and their speaking abilities and communicative competence”” is a quote from the article by Kuma that really jumped out at me while reading. I understand that this article is focusing on the Chinese culture because it is used as a generalization to represent all people of an Asian decent, but other cultures need to also be recognized as being generalized. Why do some teachers forget about culture while in the classroom? Don’t they understand that not every student is just “Caucasian” and can come from many different cultural groups? Teachers need to pay more attention towards incorporating culture into their classroom. I took a geography class in high school where we all picked a different country and explained the culture on a poster board and made food for that country and it really helped to give students an idea of what other cultures were like.
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