On 05/28/2010 05:52 PM, Declan Murphy wrote:

> Its going to take a long time to change the word(s) used to describe
> children of mixed heritage. Also is bullying a separate problem?

My daughter is in a class of 33 in a rural school with a total of 158 
kids.  In her class, she's got a Caucasian parent, one other girl has a 
Thai mother, and a boy (one of our neighbors) has a mother who is Korean 
from northwest China.  All three mixed kids are at least bilingual.

She's the most obviously different ... and at least 10~15 cm taller than 
all but one of the other girls.  But she's tall and thin while the other 
girl who is about the same height weighs about 8 kg more (28kg vs 36kg). 
  She makes a convenient target.  My wife, who is both Japan and US 
educated thinks that Japanese school kids are about the most rude and 
cruel on the planet when among themselves and that being different only 
makes it worse.

Last summer, I took my daughter to a boxing gym run by an old friend. 
She spent two weeks learning basic techniques and has not had as much 
trouble from the other kids this year ... after the first time they 
tried to give her a bad time, at least.  Although there is one kid, the 
class clown, who is built like a fire plug -- 128cm x 36kg (and whose 
father is PTA president) and doesn't seem to have gotten the message, 
yet. She dropped him in the dirt and blackened his eyes yesterday after 
he tore her jacket.  I had to go apologize today.  Kid's father told me 
having a girl beat the shit out of his son was probably the best thing 
that happened and that he hopes the kid learns humility, now.

-- 
CL