Biases that maim lives

“My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”, this is a dialogue from a famous Bollywood movie titled, ‘My name is Khan’. The movie comments upon the bias of people against Muslims. When I read stories about this brilliant boy 'Ahmed; I was reminded of this movie.

I taught in a famous college in India and in 2013 under some memorandum signed between Government of India and Afghanistan around 20 Afghan students took admission in my college. They were admitted to the business studies programs in my college and I happened to be a teacher to 7 of them. They had poor language skills in English and were in need of dire help. I started giving them extra time in college to help them cope up with the courses. But that was not enough, they needed more time. So I had to call them to my place to study. The only time I had was the early morning hours. I casually told my family about these students who were to come to study from me at home. I forgot to mention they were Afghan students. My family would be sleeping when these guys would come to study from me. Just three days had passed. My father woke up early that day and saw the students. They looked like big Afghan men in their traditional dresses, rapped in shawls as it was winter. He interrupted my teaching in between that day and called me inside. He was scared. He said they might be good kids but you never know. What if they are involved in some terrorist activities? I don’t feel safe that you teach them in early hours at home when everyone else is sleeping. Why don’t you restrict them to college or maybe call them in a livelier hour of the day. I obeyed.

When I came to Canada, I was misled by many people of my own community and after being cheated by many on small monetary issues, I met a family that was pretty straight forward and honest. They are my landlords and they are from Afghanistan.

Here, in Canada, I was told by concerned friends and strangers, not to wear the traditional Indian dresses. They said, if you do that you will be labelled and it will harm you professionally. ‘If you want to settle and grow in your profession the first thing you need to do is change your wardrobe completely’. Every time I heard such things I felt like I was wearing the shoes of those Afghan students.

As human beings we all carry biases. We literally protect our biases and live with them peacefully. As teachers we have a huge responsibility- we have to shed our biases and view our students with the same eye. It is genuinely hard.

Ever since I came across this news on Ahmed’s arrest I have been feeling pained. What amount of support will help this boy come out of the discrimination he was subjected to? All the praise and opportunities he is getting look like consolations after a person gives you a tight slap for no reason. No matter how nicely you are consoled, you can always feel the burning sensation on your cheek.

We are teachers and our profession lends us a position, officially, where our opinions and judgements are valued by our students. They have the potential of having long lasting effects on their learning and their life. We have to learn to be bias free and accepting. It is hard.

The truth is that we don’t even acknowledge our biases, many times we are not aware that they exist and when we are, we like keeping our eyes closed to them.

Teachers need to indulge in critical self- reflection often enough so that they stay aware of their thoughts, biases and involuntary judgment that may come in the way of their judgement and can negatively impact their students.

I realize that the Afghan students I stopped teaching at home, may have suffered due to my silly biases and irrational judgements. I cherish my own experiences of feeling discriminated against as they gave me a true taste of the feeling and the impact it can have on sensitive and vulnerable minds. I have learnt my lessons the harder way. People who learn from others mistakes are smarter than people like me, but nevertheless I have learnt.

I would just like to repeat in the end, that as teachers we have an added responsibility to be unbiased. Our wrong and biased judgements have the power to create ‘Osamas’ out of ‘Ahmeds’. So let us vow to reflect and stay aware of our thoughts and our biases.