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Chapter 4: Dealing with Prejudice
Jake shifted uneasily in his desk and glanced over at Manuel. Their homeroom teacher, Mrs. Collins, was clearly upset about something. He noticed that Tobi had his head down and looked as if he wanted to disappear. Jake wondered what was going on. Mrs. Collins looked out over the class and began. “It came to my attention yesterday that several members of our class treated an individual in our class very rudely and with great prejudice. The individuals involved have been dealt with separately. However, this incident points out to me that we all need to remind ourselves of our responsibilities to one another. We need to review some fundamental rules of fairness in our dealings with one another. So today, we will use our social studies class to conduct this review.” “Wow!” thought Jake. “Whatever happened must have been very big. From
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the look on Tobi’s face, he must have been involved somehow.”
Later, as he and Manuel left the classroom, they caught up with Tobi, who had left the class quickly as soon as the bell rang ending the class. “Tobi, wait up! Tell us what happened yesterday. What brought all this on?” Jake asked.
Tobi just shook his head and said, “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s over now, and I want to forget about it.” And with that he turned the corner and entered the room for his next class. Jake and Manuel continued on down the hall. Jake said, “We have to follow through on this, Manuel. We can’t just forget about it if a member of our club has been mistreated. Let’s get together with Ellie and Keiko after school and discuss this. And Benjie, of course.” “But what about the other new members?” asked Manuel. “Why would we leave them out?”
“Well,” it would be embarrassing for Tobi, Page 3 of 6 © RCL Benziger
I’m guessing. But he would feel left out if we invited the others and not him. So we won’t call it a real meeting of the club. It’s not our regular day, anyway. It’ll just be friends getting together to discuss a problem.” “Well okay,” said Manuel, “but let’s talk more with Tobi at lunchtime and try to get more information about what happened.”
By the end of the school day Jake and Manuel learned about what had happened. The day before, two boys in their class had come up to Tobi as he was getting books from his school locker. One had run his hand over Tobi’s head and asked why he wore his hair so short. They made fun of his accent and of his clothes that were not really in style at this school. It had all ended when a teacher overheard what was happening and took the boys who were bullying Tobi to the principal’s office. Miguel recounted this story for Ellie and Keiko later that afternoon at his house. “Oh, that’s terrible!” said Keiko. “Tobi must have been so embarrassed.”
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Ellie agreed and added, “Those boys should have been suspended.”
Jake replied, “They were sent home, I think, but they must have been back today, because no one was absent from class.”
“So what did your teacher do?” asked Keiko. Manuel said, “We spent the class period discussing why people treat others with disrespect. We had to brainstorm it and we came up with three main points: We like to be with people who are just like us; we don’t look at things from the other person’s point of view; and sometimes we think it makes us feel more important to put other people down. We seem higher if they seem lower.”
“That’s a pretty good summary,” said Jake. “Were you taking notes, Manuel?” “I guess I just have a good memory,” laughed Manuel.
“So what is supposed to happen now? Is there a next step?” asked Ellie. Page 5 of 6 © RCL Benziger
“Oh, with Mrs. Collins there is always a next step,” said Jake with a smile. “We are supposed to come back with ideas tomorrow to deal with prejudice in our school. Then we are going to decide on ways to get along with one another better.” “Well, let’s think of some ideas for you, then,” said Keiko. “I’ll be the recorder. Who has an idea?”
By the end of half an hour they had come up with three ideas. --------------TIME TO VOTE Exit out of this page turner. Then scroll to the bottom of the web page to place your vote.
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