I'm going to try to make this quick since I have about a million other things to get done, but I wanted to blog about this before I forgot about the incident.

Today, while I was at my practicum (in a first grade classroom), I overheard a conversation that totally shocked me. I was sitting on the side of the playground watching the kids play, with another little girl sitting next to me. One of the girls in my class came up to me and the little girl beside me and told us both that we were invited to her birthday party. A girl from one of the other classrooms overheard the invitation and asked if she could come too. The girl from my classroom responded, "No, I'm sorry but my parents said we couldn't have black people over. I'm only allowed to invite one." Needless to say, I was absolutely shocked to hear this come out of her mouth. I was baffled as to what to say. I didn't want to make a huge deal of it, if it wasn't necessary, but I also don't want children to go around with these ideals and I definitely don't want feelings to get hurt.

I talked to my cooperating teacher about the incident and she told me that this little girl IS known for saying things for shock value. She called the little girl aside and asked her what she had said earlier and if her parents had really told her this. She adamently agreed that they had, so my teacher said she would talk with the mother. So, after witnessing this, I'm curious of the best way to handle it. If these are the kind of ideas the parents are instilling in their child, I definitely disagree with them, but it makes me wonder what the place of the teacher is in this situation? I feel that she should be told to act a certain way in school, but is it really the teacher's place to overrule the parents' ideals overall? My cooperating teacher told the little girl not to tell other children in school what her parents said, so hopefully at least conflict is avoided for the time being.

I'm not sure exactly what topic to search in order to find more information about how to handle an issue like this, but I will be doing more research when I have more time. If anyone has any suggestions for the best way to handle an issue similar to this, I'd love comments.