Chapter 6: Social Context of Schools

Anybody can be a target for bullying, harassment, and intolerance. With this in mind, my future classroom will be focused on teaching that bullying, harassment, and intolerance are not appropriate ways to express oneself. In the spirit of the Henry Rollins quote I read in an earlier class, I will seek to show my students ways to embrace differences as much as they do similarities, and they will leave my class having been exposed to a variety of viewpoints. I will accomplish this by teaching material from a wide variety of cultures. Intolerance is almost always begat by a simple lack of exposure to a certain culture, and one of the best ways to become familiar with a certain culture is to read its literature. There are always stylistic differences, but even more fascinating are the ever-present similarities in writing from cultures around the world.