For about a year of my childhood, me and my family stayed in an area where lots of immigrants lived.
I went to preschool and there where two groups: one with children that spoke Swedish as their native language and one where they didn’t. Today, they would have mixed the groups, but not then. We didn’t even play at the yard at the same time.
One girl in my group did not, however, speak Swedish as her native.
She was considered as a retard.
If she had a psychical handicap or not, I don’t know. But she was treated as she had one, by us kids as well as the teacher.
We didn’t want her with us in our plays.
Once there was an argument because she didn’t want to leave. The teacher came to our aid and said to the girl:
“Do you understand what they are saying? They don’t want to play with you.”
How could she?!
How could she be so careless with that girl’s feelings?
How could she favor our bad behavior? She should have told us that everyone was welcome.
8 comments:
Poor child! Poor child! Reading this I remember all the little hurts one sustains as a child among children, who are,let's face it, pretty awful at the best of times. And my impulse is to try to shield my own children from those hurts too. Over the year and a half that my oldest has been in preschool, some of the children have come to me to ask why he speaks funny. I try to explain in my own halting Italian that because I am from England he started life speaking English, and I explain my hope that his friends will help him to learn Italian. They respond pretty well to that, and I hope I've done my bit to forestall any nastiness.
Thank you for sharing.
I have heard that Italians are great in this way. They do try to understand, even those who does not speak their language.
How has that influenced your life and writing? Now that you realize how unacceptable that is, what have you done in your life to "make it right"?
Devon: I realized how wrong it was already when it happend. That's why the scene stuck to my memory. But I was passive then.
What I have done to "Make it right", you ask.
What is there to make it right? The situation cannot be changed. All I can do is to be nice to people and be watchful about who my kids exclude from their games (if they do).
As someone who has been called retarded by people as an adult I find this story painful.
I can tell you how to "Make it right"
You could write a script based on this story. This could make a great script.
After my car wreak, I forgot all of my childhood. Lost all of my math skills. Couldn't read or write. Lost 60% of my hand control.
Until the year 2002, had two or three days a week when I would forget my own name.
I know how that child felt.
I'm sorry if that last comment was too harsh. I think you had courage to write that post.
Robert: Don't worry. I believe in the right of an own opinion and the right to disagree.
If writing a script is to "make it right" I could agree.
But I don't believe in tries to settle the actual situation right. If I didn't say I was sorry then, then thirty years later doesn't change anything to the better.
I'm not glorifying me being passive, but I was only six years old.
I feel that movies have a positive force in change for the world.
I think this story goes beyond a teacher leading children in bullying a different child. I think there is an undercurrent of cultural change in your story.
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