2022.03.08 教师如何解决学校的歧视问题

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应邀参加｜国际妇女节
蒂吉丹凯 "TK "萨科谈教师如何解决学校的歧视问题
这位反歧视活动家应马拉拉-尤萨夫扎伊的邀请发表文章



2022年3月8日 (2022年3月10日更新)

我的父母在2005年离开塞拉利昂，在我们国家的内战结束后寻找机会和安全。当我们搬到华盛顿州的西雅图时，我进入了一所以白人为主的学校。在上幼儿园的第一天，我坐在书桌前，睁大眼睛，兴奋地学习着一切。我觉得，我的生活终于有了一些稳定。

起初，我的幼儿园教室是我的穆斯林家庭在911事件后的美国所遭受的歧视的避难所。在公共场合，陌生人经常嘲笑我父母浓重的口音，并盯着我母亲的头巾和传统头巾。我注意到他们听到我父亲和兄弟的阿拉伯语名字时脸色苍白。我想我可以在学校里找回我的童年。我可以成为一个孩子，沉浸在书本和游戏厨房里。


然而，随着一次又一次的种族主义遭遇，我的教室迅速变成了另一个我觉得需要逃离的地方。我清楚地记得，在一个黑人抢劫了我的房子之后，我童年时最好的朋友告诉我的几个同龄人，"黑人是如此的卑鄙"。当我试图为自己辩护时，我的老师训斥我是在捣乱。我努力接受我的学校不是我理想中的天堂，我在学校墙外经历的歧视将在课堂上继续。每一次种族主义的评论，我的信心都在减少，我的学习成绩也在下降。对我的老师来说，这意味着我不如同龄人聪明，而不是说我在学校经历的种族主义干扰了我的学习。我还无法想象，在世界各地的教室里，其他女孩正经历着她们自己的这种情况。

当我的家人在2008年搬到费城，我开始在一所以黑人为主的学校学习时，我经历了另一种欺凌。这一次，针对的是我的黑色肤色和移民身份，而不是我的种族。这种歧视被称为 "肤色歧视"。我的老师大多是白人，他们不具备解决我所经历的肤色歧视和仇外心理所需的敏感性、细微差别和文化知识。当我的学校在五年级推出反欺凌计划时，我感到很乐观。不幸的是，该计划缺乏针对性，没有彻底考虑我所在班级的文化动态。肤色歧视和对非洲学生的伤害性评论从未得到解决，尽管这两者在我的学校里普遍存在。

反思我早期在学校遭受歧视的经历，我被感动了，想创造我年轻时需要的那种出口。The Darkest Hue是我在2020年6月创建的一个反肤色主义的数字平台，以放大黑皮肤的黑人女孩和年轻女性的故事。我在一个名为 "聚光灯 "的系列中发布了黑人妇女和女孩的证词，讲述她们遭遇肤色歧视的经历。The Darkest Hue上的大多数故事都强调了教师在创造让学生感到不安全的环境方面的许多自满，甚至是同谋。我通常会想，如果他们的老师考虑到课堂以外的经历，或者接受过如何干预的培训，这些学生的生活会有多大的不同。我知道这对我来说会有很大的不同。


当然，肤色歧视只是女孩在学校的经历被她周围的政治、经济或文化动态所干扰的众多方式之一。无论是童婚、基于性别的暴力还是阶级歧视、贫困、社会规范和教师自身的偏见，许多障碍都会干扰女孩在学校的成功。如果我们想确保每个女孩都能实现其接受12年免费、安全、优质教育的权利，教师和管理人员必须与女孩一起努力，了解存在于她们课堂上的文化紧张关系以及限制其教育的结构性力量。

根据你在世界上的教学地点，影响女孩在学校的注意力或成功的问题看起来有所不同。在巴西农村，贫困、长途跋涉到学校，以及来自非土著教师和同伴的歧视，都阻碍了土著男孩和女孩接受优质教育。"在城市的学校里，老师不教我们的历史。他们不谈论我们的故事。他们更关心自己的经历。"巴西18岁的土著教育活动家Clarisse Alves说。当课程和教师不承认边缘化群体的历史时，它使不平等现象长期存在，使学生无法在肯定和承认他们全部身份的环境中学习。



当我们不研究女孩和男孩的独特经历如何因性别而异时，我们就有可能把它们混为一谈。我的想法受到了哥伦比亚法学院法学教授、民权活动家金伯利-克伦肖的影响。她在1989年提出了她的 "交叉性 "框架。它认为，我们的社会和政治身份的不同方面同时相互作用，形成了独特的污名和歧视经历。如果不承认黑人女孩和男孩有不同的经历，可能会导致无效的甚至有害的干预措施。这就是为什么女孩直接塑造它们是如此重要。

课堂为变革提供了独特的可能性。在女孩建立自信的关键时期，教师可以与她们密切合作。在青春期，女孩的信心急剧下降，即使她们在学校的表现优于男孩。2018年发表的一项研究要求美国1300名小学生在8至14岁时对他们的信心进行评价。在12岁之前，女孩和男孩的自我报告的信心水平相对相似；然而，在那之后，女孩的信心骤降了近30%，而男孩的信心保持得更好。虽然教师肯定女孩的成就和身份总是很重要的，但他们在8至14岁之间这样做尤其重要，这样她们的信心才不会在青少年时期骤降。我在中学时从我最喜欢的老师那里得到的表扬一直伴随着我上大学。如果不是他们坚持不懈的鼓励，我不会有信心申请到哥伦比亚大学。有时只需要一个老师肯定你--特别是当你的文化身份在其他地方没有得到肯定时。


当教师有培训和资源来解决限制女孩潜力的社会规范，无论是肤色歧视还是其他形式的歧视，其影响都是非凡的。在某些方面，我仍然是那个去学校寻求逃避的小姑娘。但现在，22岁的我也要求更多。我不只是希望学校能让女孩远离种族主义和肤色歧视等伤害。我希望学校能成为拆除这些力量的工具。如果得到授权，教师可以在自己的课堂上领导变革，并确保所有女孩能够实现其学习的权利。
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Tigidankay "TK" Saccoh是一名反肤色主义活动家和马拉拉基金的编辑实习生。她是The Darkest Hue的创始人，这是一个数字空间，为经历肤色歧视的黑人妇女和女孩赋权。

诺贝尔和平奖得主马拉拉-尤萨夫扎伊邀请弗雷斯塔-卡里姆(Freshta Karim)、瓦妮莎-纳凯特(Vanessa Nakate)、基拉-尼尔金(Kiara Nirghin)和提吉丹凯-萨科(Tigidankay "TK" Saccoh)为国际妇女节写文章。请访问我们的中心，阅读更多内容。



By Invitation | International Women’s Day
Tigidankay “TK” Saccoh on how teachers can address discrimination at school
The anti-colourism activist writes at the invitation of Malala Yousafzai

Mar 8th 2022 (Updated Mar 10th 2022)


MY PARENTS LEFT Sierra Leone in 2005 in search of opportunity and safety in the aftermath of our country’s civil war. When we moved to Seattle, Washington, I enrolled in a predominantly white school. On the first day of kindergarten, I sat at my desk wide-eyed and excited to learn everything I could. I felt that finally, I had some stability in my life.

At first, my kindergarten classroom was a refuge from the discrimination my Muslim family endured in post-9/11 America. In public, strangers regularly mocked my parents’ thick accents and glared at my mother’s hijab and traditional headwraps. I noticed how their faces paled at the sound of the Arabic names of my father and brothers. I thought I could reclaim my childhood at school. I could be a kid, submerged in books and play kitchens.


With one racist encounter after another, however, my classroom rapidly transformed into another place that I felt I needed to escape. I vividly remember when my childhood best friend told several of my peers that “black people are so mean” after a black man robbed her house. When I tried to defend myself, my teacher reprimanded me for being disruptive. I struggled to accept that my school was not the haven I had idealised, that the discrimination I experienced beyond its walls would continue in the classroom. With every racist comment, my confidence dwindled and my academic performance waned. To my teachers, this meant that I was not as intelligent as my peers, not that the racism I experienced at school interfered with my learning. I couldn’t imagine yet that in classrooms around the world other girls were experiencing their own versions of this.

When my family moved to Philadelphia in 2008, and I started at a predominantly black school, I experienced a different kind of bullying. This time, it was my dark complexion and status as an immigrant that were targeted, not my race. This sort of discrimination is known as “colourism”. My teachers, mostly white, were not equipped with the sensitivity, nuance and cultural knowledge needed to address the colourism and xenophobia I experienced. I was optimistic when my school launched an anti-bullying programme in the fifth grade. Unfortunately, the programme lacked specificity and did not thoroughly consider the cultural dynamics of my classroom. Colourism and hurtful comments about African students were never addressed, though both were pervasive at my school.

Reflecting on my early experiences with discrimination in school, I was moved to create the type of outlet I needed when I was younger. The Darkest Hue is a digital anti-colourism platform I created in June 2020 to amplify the stories of dark-skinned black girls and young women. I publish testimonials from black women and girls in a series called Spotlight about experiences with colourism. Most of the stories on The Darkest Hue underline the many ways teachers are complacent, or even complicit, in creating environments that feel unsafe for their pupils. I am usually left wondering how different these pupils’ lives might have been had their teachers thought to consider experiences outside the classroom or been trained on how to intervene. I know that would have made a difference for me.


Colourism is of course only one of the many ways a girl’s experiences at school can be disrupted by the political, economic or cultural dynamics around her. Whether it’s child marriage, gender-based violence or classism, poverty, social norms and teachers’ own prejudices, many obstacles can interfere with girls’ success at school. If we want to ensure that every girl is able to realise her right to 12 years of free, safe, quality education, teachers and administrators must work with girls to understand the cultural tensions that exist in their classrooms and the structural forces that limit their education.

Depending on where you teach in the world, the issues impacting girls’ focus or success at school look different. In rural Brazil, poverty, long and difficult treks to school and discrimination from non-Indigenous teachers and peers alike prevent Indigenous boys and girls from receiving quality education. “In schools in the city, teachers don’t teach us our history. They don’t talk about our stories. They care more about their experiences,” says 18-year-old Clarisse Alves, an Indigenous education activist in Brazil. When curriculums and teachers fail to acknowledge the history of marginalised groups, it perpetuates inequality and prevents pupils from learning in environments that affirm and acknowledge their full identities.



We risk conflating the unique experiences of girls with boys when we do not examine how they vary by gender. I have been influenced in my thinking by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor at Columbia Law School and a civil-rights activist. She introduced her framework of intersectionality in 1989. It posits that different aspects of our social and political identities interact simultaneously to create unique experiences with stigma and discrimination. Failing to acknowledge that black girls and boys have different experiences may lead to ineffective or even harmful interventions. That is why it is so important that girls directly shape them.

The classroom presents unique possibilities for change. Teachers get to work closely with girls during a critical period for establishing their confidence. Girls’ confidence declines dramatically during puberty, even when they outperform boys in school. A study published in 2018 asked 1,300 pupils in America to rate their confidence from the ages of 8 to 14. Girls’ and boys’ self-reported confidence levels were relatively similar up until 12 years old; however, girls’ confidence plummeted nearly 30% after that, while boys’ confidence held up much better. While it is always important for teachers to affirm girls’ achievements and identities, it is especially important they do this between ages 8 and 14 so that their confidence does not plummet when they are teenagers. The praise I received from my favourite teachers when I was in middle school has stayed with me throughout college. I would not have had the confidence to apply to Columbia University were it not for their persistent encouragement. Sometimes all it takes is one teacher affirming you—especially when your cultural identities are not being affirmed anywhere else.


When teachers have the training and resources to address the social norms limiting girls’ potential, whether it be colourism or another form of discrimination, the impact is extraordinary. In some ways, I am still that little girl who went to school looking for an escape. But now, at 22, I also demand more. I do not just want schools to insulate girls from harms such as racism and colourism. I want schools to be tools that dismantle these forces. When empowered, teachers can lead change in their own classrooms and ensure all girls can realise their right to learn.
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Tigidankay “TK” Saccoh is an anti-colourism activist and editorial intern at Malala Fund. She is the founder of The Darkest Hue, a digital space that empowers black women and girls who experience colourism.

Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel peace-prize laureate, has invited Freshta Karim, Vanessa Nakate, Kiara Nirghin and Tigidankay “TK” Saccoh to write essays for International Women’s Day. Visit our hub to read more.