Negotiating Learner Differences MOOC’s Updates

Identity crisis amongst immigrant kids in Quebec, Canada

I started my career as a school teacher in Montreal, Canada. I have mainly taught immigrants' kids who are fluent in neither of the official languages in Canada (English, French).

The students felt that in order to be accpeted in the society they need to assimilate the culture, heritage, traditions, and habits. I have seen that, over the years, they have developed a double identity, one that they use at home with their parents and community and another with their peers in school or in any other outdoor activity. The amount of bullying that this goup of students has been facing is unbearable. Just because they come from a different ethnic group has put them in the front line to be attacked. There was even a student I remember very well who is originally Lebanese, very white, blond hair, blue eyes... all the physical features of the White race. His name and his veiled mother uncovered his true identity, which made him face a tremendous amount of psychological and physical harrassment. The majority group's kids have even named him "the false white kid"

The societal race crisis has tremendously and negatively affected classrooms and learning. It has created a rupture between kids who are naturally not racists or supremacists.