The link is: http://www.expatsingapore.com/ubb/Forum10/HTML/008788.html
I have also included a copy below in case the thread is deleted in the future:
| Author | Topic: this young??????? |
| this young? unregistered |  posted 21-03-2007 12:40 PM  hi all, i really do not wish to create flames here or am welcoming any rude postings in reply but im a bit shocked at what happened today. first ill start by saying i like singapore,we have been here since september and ive had no problems before........ my daughter goes to a local school. k1(kindergarten 1) shes starting her 2nd term there now and she really likes it.shes learning chinese, likes her teacher, etc we are happy with the school.she tryed a international montessori before but she prefers this school much more.and i can not afford the high international school fees of other schools.anyways,a lot of the girls,my daughter included bring stickers to school and share and exchange them with other girls. today a girl brought pencils and gave one to everyone in the class except my daughter. my daughter asked nicely if she could have one and the girl said "NO ONLY CHILDREN WITH BLACK HAIR CAN HAVE ONE, YOU DONT LOOK LIKE US, SO CANT HAVE ONE" all other children got one, boys also.just not my daughter.she said she wishes she had black hair so she could have a pencil too.appartently the teacher was at the door talking to another teacher at the time this happened so she missed it.im in shock that this is starting soooo young?they are 4 year olds???????????ive heard many positive things about local schools and all children being excepted and treated like a local.has anyone had this type of thing happen before?any advice? talk to the teacher? please no flames here. im feeling bad enough as it is.... IP: Logged |
| one more expat unregistered |  posted 21-03-2007 12:57 PM I'm sorry to hear this happened to your daughter, especially at this age. With her going to a local school, she would most likely stand out, especially if her hair isn't black. You may want to bring this up with the teacher, to see if this has happened previously. Unfortunately, these things will happen at school, and is most certainly a prelude to life itself. This would be a good time to have a chat with your daughter, and explain to her that even though we all have different colored hair, we're all the same. Maybe a little hard to take at her age, but believe me, they do understand more than you think. Good luck! IP: Logged |
| scarymoo unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 01:39 PM I woudn't make a big deal of it as kids can be just a bit weird at this age and come up with all sorts of strange ideas. I would speak to the teacher though to alert her to what has happened and maybe she can speak to the class about accepting differences in people and about being nice to all in a non-accusing way. IP: Logged |
| Don't Sweat It unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 02:08 PM Four years' old is about where it starts. My son who is half Asian was in a very "white" school in the US. In 1st grade he came home one day and basically said, "I hate Tommy!' "Why do you hate Tommy." We laughed about it and I told him to ignore stupid comments. Maybe your daughter should bring something in too. Share with everyone including the stupid girl. She can make a big deal about it, "I want you to know that even though you hurt my feelings I want to be your friend so I am giving you one too." Bridges can be built from both sides of a river. Just ask Singapore and Malaysia - LOL IP: Logged |
| to op unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 02:24 PM my son went to local montessori for 1 1/2years, may i say, i was pleased the day he started an international school. he got similar treatment to your daughter, basically all the kids were excluding him from anything and everything, just beacuse he was different. i know pple will say it can`t be at that early age, but trust me it can.i know exactly what you are talking about. my advise is get your daughter out of there asap .... by the time he left he was turning into little robot!! he is very happy at his new school, he is in reception now. we are happy to see him enjoying the school and be happy!!! IP: Logged |
| disagree unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 04:15 PM i have to disagree with "to OP" if you take her out over this incident you will be teaching her its ok to runaway from problems. i like "dont sweat it"'s solution. as the saying goes more flies are cought with honey than with vinegar! do speak to the teacher, hopefully she can nip this in the bud. IP: Logged |
| miss butterfly unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 07:12 PM no it cant. thisis something minorities have to learn to live with. the best she can do is make an extra effort and hope to make some friends. this is a board for adults and how many times have you seen them wail petulantly: this is an expat board, why are locals posting here? it never stops. at any age. as toyour question of 'this young'. what did you think? four year olds are blind and cant see that boys and girls are different or chinese, indians and whites and blacks are different? grow up. IP: Logged |
| this young? unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 07:40 PM to miss butterfly....PLEASE FLY AWAY! to everyone else, thank you very much for your support. i will talk to the teacher and have the talk with my daughter and suggest she offer this girl a sticker as suggested.i really appreciate being able to come on here and find understanding ears. IP: Logged |
| If it was me unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 08:23 PM I think miss butterfly made a couple of valid points until the end paragraph spoilt it! We ARE minorities here and it has probably been the same for kids coming over to our countries to live in the past (and present!) and they have simply had to put up with it because there is probably no other school for them to go to. The way you word it in your opening post makes it sound very much like it is just one girl who is responsible for this. If this is the case, then I would speak to the teacher about it but not get the teacher to draw the attention of the whole class by having a talk about how we are all different. I would ask the teacher to take this girl aside, with or without the girl's parents (depending on how you and the teacher choose to treat the incident) and have a serious word with her. The way children are is sometimes (not always, but sometimes) because it is the way their parents are. If the parents are involved, they will either be humbled that they've been rumbled, or they'll be mortified that their child is saying things like this and sort it out. Either way, the teacher definitely needs to know. IP: Logged |
| this young? unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 08:42 PM i totally agree and you brought this into a different light i hadnt even thought of. im assuming it was 1 girl but this was told to me by my 4 year old so i may have a bit of the story wrong. i also think madam butterfly is right on some accounts but the fact is shes telling me nothing i dont already know! im already very aware of the realities of life. i lived in switzerland and got mocked big time for my german and for the fact that im american. im a big girl and am used to it. just thought preschool it was a bit young to start this. maybe it is and with the teachers help we can stop it for a few more years anyways? IP: Logged |
| Don't Sweat It unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 08:53 PM Please make sure you place the responsibilities correctly. Behavior - In school the children's behavior is the responsibility of the teachers and the principals. No hitting, no spitting, no hair pulling etc. are all behaviors. Sharing at school is an optional endeavor and excluding kids is a form of bullying or harrassment - the test is that it can interfere with learning. The school has the option to ban all "group" sharing in class if it is deemed as disruptive. Beliefs - If I believe a minority is inferior then I learned it from a parent or a peer. Trying to change people's beliefs is impossible. This child's parents may be racists - who knows? Who cares? You can't fix it. The parents don't realize that the world is multicultural and if their kid doesn't learn to tolerate and mix she will likely be unsuccessful in life. Demonstrating racist behaviors is not tolerated in civilized societies. IP: Logged |
| to de above poster unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 09:02 PM very well said!!! in our condo lots of local kids, strangly none of them want to play with expat kids, my son tried to make friends with them on a numerous occasins but was just turned down, ignored, i told him not to bother anymore. i know it seems harsh from my side , but what else to do!!?? luckily there are lot of other kids there so he doesn`t even notice... IP: Logged |
| I tell you unregistered | posted 21-03-2007 09:57 PM Geez Louise i can tell you.If i did not know how harsh the world was before, I do now by visiting this site.Everday theres a rude person on here to read us our rights.Miss Butterfly is only 1 of many examples of bullying going on here amongst adults. IP: Logged |
| yes this young unregistered | posted 22-03-2007 08:48 AM OP; I'm sorry your child went through this but this is fairly common here. I agee with many of the previous posters that the behaviour is probably learnt at home. Where i disagree is that beliefs cannot be changed. I suggest you talk to the teacher. Don't make it about racism etc YET - just tell it how it happened and let the teacher fill in the blanks. Make it about the exclusion and not about the hair colour comment. If the teacher has a brain, she will connect the dots. Make sure you follow up in writing - again focus on the exclusion but make sure a mention of the hair colour comment is included. If this continues and the 'softly softly' approach fails to work you will wind up with a written (always helpful) record of the incidents involving this child where the exclusion has been based on a physical trait and you can then use this to demonstrate the racist element of the behaviour. But i'd only do that as a last resort. I've found through bitter experience that racism is often ignored, not believed or accepted here by the local population UNLESS it happens to them. My children also have had numerous bad experiences over the last 5 years where they either tired to play with local kids in the condo and were turned down (they took that OK) or WERE playing with the kids and had the parents come up and tell the children (in Mandarin, which my children speak) "leave the foreign kids alone - they are nasty trouble" - that was NOT ok and caused tears. It's just the way of the world but you can change the world, one mind at a time. All the best. IP: Logged |
| MOE slave unregistered |  posted 22-03-2007 09:48 AM My kids were in a local school for nearly two years. I was really shocked at how deeply the assumption that everyone is Chinese goes in the education system here. The longer I live here, the more I realise that there is an overwhelming assumption everywhere that people are Chinese. Yes, I know that the majority of people here are, but this majority is only about 75-80%, not 99%. It's just amazing the way that race is used and rehashed as a way to generalise and marginalise very single day. I could not understand why my children (who are caucasian and have light brown hair and brown/blue eyes repsectively) would colour all their artwork so the people had black hair, black eyes and yellow skin (sorry about how crude that sounds, but it really was coloured that way - every time). I pointed out to the teachers that this was strange considering the number of Indian, mixed-race and the caucasian kids that were enrolled there that all the artwork was identical and Chinese. Then I saw the "example" picture (ie: the kids were told how to colour their work)... I have taught kids whose parents have told me (without blinking) that they do not want their children sitting in class next to the Malay kids. After picking my eyeballs up and trying my best to be professional, I calmly asked why that was. "Malay's do not work hard like Chinese. They don't value education and only want to play the fool. I don't want my kids being influenced by that." This attitude was NOT a once-off. The truly shocking part? My local colleagues had moved the seats of my student's siblings. It's very disheartening because it is always assumed that as an Ang Moh, I'm naive and have no idea what it's like to live in a multi-cultural society. I have put my kids into an international school. IP: Logged |
| helping hand unregistered | posted 22-03-2007 10:50 AM welcome to singapore! I suggest you check out: http://www.asianracism.blogspot.com/ IP: Logged |
All times are SG
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