A childhood education consultant has advised schools to do possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in Nursery World Magazine.
Children should be provided with paper other than white to drawn on and paints and crayons should come in “the full range of flesh tones”, reflecting the diversity of the human race, according to the former teacher.
Seriously? Paper other than white? Oh and witches shouldn’t be dressed in black you know because then your kids will grow up to hate black people. That follows logically, doesn’t it?
She also said that
“staff should be prepared to be economical with the truth when asked by pupils what their favourite colour is and, in the interests of good race relations, answer “black” or “brown”.
“Economical with the truth?”
Look, in nursery school if the kids don’t eat the blocks, it’s a good day. Stop monkeying with kids. It’s not the kids who are obsessed with race. It’s the overgrown hippies. I say we take away the crayons from the hippies and put them in a timeout.
September 26, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Well said. I escpecially like your closing line.
September 26, 2011 at 4:18 pm
more from the Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8786641/Dress-witches-in-pink-and-avoid-white-paper-to-prevent-racism-in-nuseries-expert-says.html
September 26, 2011 at 4:20 pm
The white paper and favorite color things are silly. Why would someone lie about their favorite color being blue? But I can get behind the flesh toned crayons. I imagine that unless you've got peachy-pink skin it's frustrating not to be able to draw an accurate picture of yourself. It's a small thing, but if the flesh-toned crayons are available (and they are-widely) why not have them around?
September 26, 2011 at 5:13 pm
The larger boxes of crayons typically have a nice range of "flesh tones" from peachy pale through assorted shades of beige and brown. What I don't get though, is the whole "white" thing– white paper is nothing like the color of anyone's actual skin. I'm a very fair-skinned redhead, about as light as they come. Even my newest, palest, un-sun-exposed red-haired infants are NOT the color white. It's just a naming convention. For that matter, so is red hair, which in no way resembles a red crayon, but that is a rant for another day… 🙂
September 26, 2011 at 5:23 pm
When young children were given pictures of different races of children, they were given a scenario and asked who was the "bad kid" , and even the black kids picked the black kids in the stories. Even young children can think poorly of a different skin color. I think having flesh toned crayons is a great idea.
September 26, 2011 at 5:42 pm
My nephew got written up because he told a friend he "didn't like chocolate." I don't know where he came from, but he really just doesn't like chocolate- NOTHING to do with race.
Margaret- my girls used to sing"jesus loves the little children….red and yellow, black and PINK…they knew we aren't white
September 26, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Is it against Catholic teaching to slap a hippie from time to time? You know – out of love? Just wondering. (Timeout at least!)
I am a clueless color blind person. Yes. Both. One day, my best buddy said to me jokingly, "Oh ha ha. You just say that cause I'm black." I turned and looked at him and said, "You're not black." And he kinda went ballistic. "What do you mean I'm not black! What are you trying to say?!" So I looked at him again and said, "Wow. So, ok I guess you ARE black. But. MAN! Why did you have to tell me that?"
He was mad at me for a few days. But, before he said that to me, I truly had never, not once, thought of him as black. (I am a white guy.) It's amazing how you bond in the Army when your life depends on one another.
Not to be utterly off topic here, but, I wonder how that's going to work when a young soldier's bunk mate introduces himself as "Queenie".
September 26, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Favorite color black? Black isn't a color. It's the absence of color.
September 26, 2011 at 7:02 pm
My favoiret color is diversity.
My favoriet number is eekwality.
My faovrite magzine is Nursery World.
September 26, 2011 at 7:21 pm
"But, before he said that to me, I truly had never, not once, thought of him as black."
???? How do you think of/not think of someone as black (or white for that matter)? Isn't it simply an ethnic fact??
September 26, 2011 at 7:50 pm
Maria, he is Literally color blind. He can't tell the difference in skin tone. Color does not look the same to him as a color blind person as they do to everyone else. SO it is entirely possible not to know his skin was black. My friend was color blind and did not know Grass was Green.
September 26, 2011 at 7:56 pm
@Maria:
I know it is very strange, but it is true. I suppose when you all wear the same uniform and do the same exact thing every single day, and when you spend 24/7 with someone, sweating and struggling and being there to give each other moral support, for months, you just…well… bond. In this particular instance, my buddy was a little light skinned, but still – I just never spent a single thought on his ethnicity. Not once.
Other guys in my platoon, I noticed were black. Loved them too, but I thought, wow he is one huge black dude – or whatever. Maybe cause I wasn't as tight with them or b/c of the way my buddy talked. I don't know. But, to quote Bill Murray from "Stripes", "That's the fact, Jack!"
BTW if you are white, you don't think of your white friends as white, do you? Or Hispanic you don't think, oh he's a Hispanic man? You just don't. Same thing. What is kind of cool is when you can look at someone and see the face of Jesus in them. It is fun to try to do as you walk down the street. When I see someone angry come out of a store, I picture them as a baby and as how God created them and imagine how much He must love that person. Really it is fun to try. (Especially when you are driving and they just cut you off)
This is why all this forced diversity is a load of dirty diapers. When people get to know each other they can decide good from bad on their own. As it should be.
September 26, 2011 at 7:59 pm
Oh HA! Just read Anon above. That's pretty funny, but partly true too. I am color blind but I do see color. Just not the same way as other people. (When I see a rainbow, though, I only see yellow, green and blue.) But I certainly can tell one's ethnicity and I do see black. ("I see black people HA!")
September 26, 2011 at 9:19 pm
"It's not the kids who are obsessed with race. It's the overgrown hippies."
And the CBC. But they use race to gain an unfair advantage. But I digress.
Back to your post, I wonder if the hippies are not over-compensating for a deep seated racism in themselves.
September 27, 2011 at 12:04 am
The color blind comment reminds me of me.
I grew up in Northern Virginia and diversity was always around me. I thought of skin color basically being like hair color (different but who cares). It wasn't until high school when everyone started shoving all this diversity crap at me.
But anyway, the reason it reminds me of me is that due to everyone sounding different, I can't tell the difference between most accents. It took me about 3 years to realize that my best friend was from New York (with a THICK accent). I know to pay attention to it now, but I usually can't tell. Everyone sounds different to me.
September 27, 2011 at 12:05 am
Paper other than white? You know, when I was a kid, everyone wanted to draw on black paper because black paper is cool…then we realized that the colors just don't show up on black paper so we stopped wanting it.
September 27, 2011 at 1:36 am
I am totally for the accurate skin tone crayons . . . because it just makes sense, and because I am an adoptive mother to children who don't look "peach" like me (that's my 4-year-old's word for my skin tone). Kids DO notice skin color — they just don't ascribe negative meaning to it unless they are taught to do so.
Give my kid the crayons, for heaven's sake — there are enough toys, TV shows and movies featuring only caucasian characters! At least let her draw her own family accurately.
But I don't think she feels oppressed by white paper!
Sorry I have to post anonymously — my google account is crabby.
Nancy
September 28, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Having GREEN as your favorite color wouldn't even be good enough? :)Poor Kermit was right.