How to talk to your child about microaggressions in the classroom

What do you do when your child says, “I think my teacher hates me”? In this episode, Julian breaks down what that really means. 

Learn how to spot signs of microaggressions in the classroom. Get simple ways to support your child and speak up when something feels wrong. And find out how to address microaggressions in a calm, clear way.

Related resources

• Families of color and communicating with teachers

• Perspectives: How to make sure families of color are heard by the school

• The hard truth about racism in special education: Part 1

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(00:40) What is a microaggression?

(02:44) Julian’s personal experience

(07:37) How to talk to your child about microaggressions 

Episode transcript

Julian Saavedra: You drive her home from school and your child says something that stops you cold. “Dad, I think my teacher hates me.” What do you do? What do you say?

Welcome to "The Opportunity Gap," a show that helps you navigate the education system. I'm your host, Julian, an assistant principal with over 20 years of experience.

Today we're talking about how to recognize microaggressions in the classroom, how to talk to your child about it, and how to know when it's time to speak up.

(00:38) What is a microaggression?

So what is a microaggression? It's a subtle, often unintentional action or comment that reinforces stereotypes or makes students feel marginalized. This can look like mispronouncing a name or mispronouncing a common name constantly.

It happened to me all the time when I was a kid. My last name is Saavedra with two A's, and I would get Savedra or Scavedira or Scavedra. And it was pretty clear how to pronounce it correctly, but it would happen a lot.

And most importantly, which we don't talk about as much, but the idea of low expectations. And low expectations communicated subtly. So maybe not calling on the students of color in the classroom, maybe saying, oh, that might be a little bit too hard for you, or I'm not sure if your child can do that. The other kids can, but I'm not sure if your kid can. Those are all examples of microaggressions.

(01:38) What isn't a microaggression?

Now, I do want to make a clear distinction. Not every single disagreement or difficult interaction is a microaggression. Sometimes you might hear a kid say, well, that's racist. And unless it's a pattern, or if it's a pattern that's a repeated situation and it especially aligns with race, class, culture, then that's something you might want to look at closer.

But we have to make sure that we're teaching our children that we have to really look at patterns and not necessarily just isolated situations, because we always want to make sure that if we are saying that, or if we are making some sort of accusation about microaggressions, that we're pretty clear on what the definition is.

And so I would always advise our parents, trust your instincts. Whatever race you are, trust your instincts. Understand that they happen, and our goal is to help our children recognize when it's happening and what to do about it when it does happen.

(02:35) A personal story about microaggressions

So I'm going to be a little vulnerable. If you're watching us on YouTube or you've seen us live, or if you're listening, I identify as a Black and Latino male. My father was a Cuban immigrant. My mother is an African American from New York. And growing up, I went to a Catholic school where it was pretty diverse. So we had about a third of Black and brown kids, two thirds white. The neighborhood I lived in was almost all Black.

And so when I was in high school, I had a lot of friends from all different types of races and persuasions. But most of my teachers were white. I didn't have a Black or brown teacher until my sophomore year in high school. I didn't have a Black male teacher until I went to college.

But there's a microaggression that I experienced. I experienced a lot of them over the course of my time in school, like a lot of my friends. But one in particular will always stand out. And it actually is one of the reasons why I became a teacher.

When I was a senior in high school, I got really serious about my studies. I was always a pretty good student, but I hadn't been really serious about it. I had thought about college and, you know, my mom and my grandmother were very pressing us, you're going to college. You know, you'll figure out how to get there, but you're definitely going. But I had never really thought about, well, where am I going to wind up?

I did tours of different places, and as I got into senior year, I realized my grades are pretty good. I might be able to get into some of these pretty good colleges. And so I was at a school where a lot of different colleges would come and visit, and we would go to different tours. And I was in the honors classes and I was in the advanced placement classes. And so I found that I was getting exposed to a lot of different opportunities.

And so one school in Connecticut really caught my eye. And this school is called Yale. Now, if you know anything about the Ivy League, Yale is one of the Ivy League schools. It's in New Haven, Connecticut. And I was really excited about the opportunity to check it out. My friend and I went, we visited on our own to check it out. And I loved it. I got to see it. I was like, whoa, this is great. This could be a great spot. I heard that there were scholarships available for kids like me who were coming from a single parent home and we didn't have a lot of funds to provide for college. So I thought, well, this could be good for me.

So I went to my guidance counselor and I explained that I would like to apply to Yale as one of my schools. And my grades were far and above qualified. I had an SAT score that was good enough to get me looked at. I was involved in a whole bunch of extracurricular activities. I had good recommendations. I thought I had a pretty strong application.

And so I went to her and said, you know, I need you to submit the application for Yale. And she was an older white woman, old school Italian woman, and she looked dead in my face and said, I don't think that school is good for people like you. And I looked at her and, you know, 17-year-old Julian said, well, what you mean it's not good enough for me? And she said, well, you know, people like you, you know, people like come from like where you come from. And I go, what do you mean? She was like, I just, I don't think it's a good fit for you. Why don't you try some of the state schools?

So at that point, I didn't fully recognize what was happening in the moment as a 17-year-old, but I knew something wasn't right. So I said, all right, well, I'm going to walk away because I might say something to you that I don't want to get myself in trouble with. So I'm just going to take my application, I'm going to walk away. All right, you got it. So I walked away and I didn't tell my mom. I knew, you know, you know my mother, she doesn't play. And I didn't want her to come up there causing ruckus. So I just said, all right, I'm going to leave this alone.

And so I went back and figured out how to submit the application without a guidance counselor. And so I did submit the application, but I realized that I needed the guidance counselor's signature. So I went back to this counselor and I said, listen, I don't really care what you think about it. I need your signature, submit the application. And she took it, begrudgingly, but she took it. And I walked away and that was that.

A couple months later, I get an envelope in the mail with Yale, my name on it. And it was a big envelope. So I'm thinking, oh, snap, I might have, I might have got in. And I opened the letter and it says, Julian, we regret to inform you, you've been waitlisted at Yale due to your application being submitted past the deadline.

I was shocked. I was like, wow. So you're saying that if she would have submitted this on time, then I probably had a chance of getting in. And so what I found out is that this particular counselor, she submitted my application late. And then I went back to her and said, well, what happened? And she said, well, you know, I didn't want to hurt your spirit, so I just submitted it later. And I walked away. I never spoke to her after that.

I went to my history teacher. She helped me get into Fairfield University in Connecticut on a full scholarship, and the rest is history. But that experience made me realize there's too many kids like us that — and when I say like us, I mean people who are coming from a similar background that I am — that are experiencing places where they don't have advocates for them and where the systems are in place where even though you do everything you're supposed to do, you still don't achieve.

(07:27) How to talk to your child about microaggressions

So the question is, well, how do I talk to my child about this? How do I talk to them about the feelings they might have when it happens? Because the reality is, trust and believe, it's going to happen.

So the first thing I would say to our parents, think about what you would like them to say or how you would like them to work through this if this happens. When you're talking to your child about a situation that happens, you want to validate the child. Validate the feelings. Listen, that sounds really upsetting. Tell me more about it. I always advocate for trying to stay as even keeled, not getting too high, not getting too low, just being very even keeled. You want to get as much information as you can.

Some questions that you can ask if your child comes home and says, Dad, my teacher really doesn't like me. I think it's because of what I look like. You can ask them, well, what happened before? What happened after? What do you think the teacher expected you to do? Hey son, is this a one time thing or is this happening a lot? The more you ask questions to get more information, the more informed you're going to be of how you can support your child.

Something we do in the Saavedra household is we try to practice conversations we're going to have with the teacher before it happens at school. So we'll say, all right, I'm the teacher, you're the student. Or how about you're the teacher, I'm the student. And then that makes the kids even funnier because they're like, oh, I get to be the teacher. And they'll act all extra, but it gives them a chance to see what it could look like. And it gives you a chance to really practice with your child how they might react in a conversation situation.

(09:12) Knowing when to take action

All right, so now you've practiced conversations with your kids. Now you've really thought about, like, what is it going to be like if a child comes home and talks to me about this? And you feel like you have all the information that you need, you feel like you've documented it, and you find that there is a pattern happening. You find that the same thing is happening over and over again and you've made the decision to do something more.

First things first for any parents, know your rights. You have the right to advocate for your child without retaliation. And what does that mean? That means if you show up to school and you explain that you feel like something is not going right, your child should not have their seat moved. Your child should not get in trouble. Your child should not get the cold shoulder from school immediately after you make those concerns known. That is retaliatory behavior and that is illegal.

Every single district in the state, every single district in the country, every single district has a process to share complaints. There might be a parent liaison, or there might be something called a face office or a family liaison office where you can make an anonymous complaint, or you can levy a complaint directly at the school district level. But there is a process for you to do so. Please make sure you research that so you know what that process is.

So when do I know when I have to do something? When should I act? You know your child. You know that if they're coming home and they're distressed, or they're emotional, their body language is different, their facial expressions change, they might be showing a little bit of signs of depression, they're anxious. Those are all signs that this is not just something they're making up and that you need to really look into this.

And listen, I will be the first to say, as a parent, it's really hard to get the courage to go to the school and levy concerns. It's not easy for everybody. It's not. But I will say that if you notice these patterns, it's our responsibility to do something about it.

So here's what you should do. Always make sure you put anything that you're doing with communication with the school in writing. It can be an email, it could even be some schools have a Remind app or ParentSquare app or ClassDojo app, some sort of thing that can allow you to communicate with the school and the teachers. And there's a written documentation of that communication.

Secondly, as much as you might want to, don't go in there being accusatory. Schools will be on the defensive, and rightly so. You have no idea, unless you're in schools, how many things are coming at schools on a daily basis. And so I would advocate for you to make sure that whatever you're saying, you include the facts: who, what, when, where, and how did it make the child feel. That's most important.

Now, if you reach out to the teacher and you do have a meeting and the meeting becomes contentious, or the meeting becomes in a space where it's not working for you, now you know you need to go to the next step. And the next step would be: reach out to an administrator. Ask for support.

(12:55) Outro and Credits

Okay. So we've talked about microaggressions. You should be able to define what they are. You should be able to explain how you are able to support your child. You should definitely have an idea of how you're going to create a script or some opportunities for practice if this were to happen. And you should know what your steps are if you feel like you need to escalate to further action.

Thanks so much for listening today. We love hearing from our listeners, so if you have any thoughts about today's episode, you can email us at opportunitygap@understood.org.

And be sure to check out the show notes for links and resources to anything we mentioned in the episode.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.

"The Opportunity Gap" is produced by Tara Drinks and Cody Nelson. Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Nico Rothenberg.

Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director.

From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson.

Thanks again for listening.