Do I have to rant about this again?
I'll just point you to my last rant on this topic to save myself time.
I am shocked to see that some of you feel that blonde jokes are OK in a college classroom. Have you thought of how that makes the blonde students in your class feel? They have lived their lives hearing this stereotype, seeing it played out on TV, they have heard it from "friends," family, and complete strangers who will walk up to them to tell them how stupid they are. I cannot believe that you think it is OK for you to stand up in the front of the class and tell a student hu is stupid because of the color of hus hair.
I will give you the story that made me realize how harmful this can be to a student.
My cousin's daughter is blonde. She is a very smart girl who is in high school. I will call her Lisa. Two years ago, Lisa was telling me she wanted to be a computer scientist. Last fall, I went to visit my cousin. I spent some some time talking to Lisa about her classes. She has always excelled at math. Lisa told me that she was not doing well at math and that she didn't think cs was for her anymore.
After further investigation, it turned out that her teacher made blonde jokes all the time. When a student got an answer wrong, he would say, don't be blonde. Of course, if she got an answer wrong, he would say, well we can't expect more from a blonde, can we? This extended into her friends, who started saying the same thing. Her grades and confidence slipped. I was disgusted. I figured this teacher was unique. I assumed that most teachers would know they have influence over their students and that they would NEVER think it was appropriate to single out a student by physical attribute and call them stupid. I was wrong.
Yes, I paid this teacher a visit and Lisa again wants to go into cs again. We are working with her on her self esteem. She will spend her life hearing jokes about how stupid she is, she will continue to see it on TV. I hope she never has to encounter another teacher who thinks this is funny, particularly if she does go into cs. Promise me you won't do it, OK?
