February
4
ELA B10: Feb 4 “Panache” and a talk about Affirmative Action…
- We started off the class and I shared with students a story my brother, an R.C.M.P. officer, has shared with another group of my students that he came to speak with. He was mistaken once when he assumed a man had asked a woman for spare change so he could buy alcohol, when in fact the man turned out to be buying the gasoline he had been claiming he needed. My brother felt badly for assuming the man was lying, based on his looks. We talked, as a class, about the assumptions some people make, including ourselves. People are so afraid of the term “racism” that we get very protective and guarded of ourselves regarding topics relating to it.
- We read aloud a story called “Panache” about a few Aboriginal men who have finished their mechanical training and are off for new jobs, only to get there and find they are unwanted and untrusted by the other workers. The mine receives money for hiring Aboriginals, so they are allowed to stay and work but are given menial jobs with little importance. One of the men die, though, in trying to save the life of another “white” worker. He dies honorably, with “panache”, and the men from the mine suddenly show a change of heart towards the Aboriginal men, although we have not yet figured out exactly what causes this change.
- We were going through the questions and answering them together when we got to the topic of Affirmative Action, which most students were unaware of. I explained that, in an effort to even out the workforce and give opportunities to people who would otherwise not have them, the government opens certain jobs to people not based on their qualificiations but by another category, such as race or gender. We listed what we thought the positives and negatives of such a hiring practice would be and had a fairly lengthy conversation about it.