What's worse than being around racist people is assuming that an innocent person around you is a racist. That's exactly what happened about 6 months back in my SFI (swedish for immigrants) class in Globen.
The teachers were amazing. I was lucky enough to study in one of the best areas of Stockholm for SFI. Each teacher was so devoted to teaching us the lanugage with all the patience in the world. They had prepared us in every way. From conversing with swedes to writing a classy resume and giving a good interview. From reading newspapers and novels to writing MVG (A +) essays. Something that seemed impossible to do at first until they started building bridges of hope for us.
We had a mentor named Eva who would come every Friday to talk to us about career building skills. About making a proper resume, how to search for jobs, the job environment, and so on. Also, discussions about the society. She was this very sweet old lady with a round face and short white hair. I can imagine how hard it was for her to make us shy people try to speak some swedish. Especially for the students who were in the beginner's level. Despite all that, Eva had the patience to speak even slower, articulate even more just so we can learn faster.
There was a Friday when Eva came into the classroom and started discussion. She mixed up her agenda and thought we were in a higher level class, which meant there were more new words involved. None of us talked. So she became confused. She kept asking the same simple question in swedish "Do all of you understand what I am saying?"
No answer.
Because obviously, more than half the people didn't understand.
We only knew so much. She finally realized she had the wrong agenda in front of her after she asked us an easier question that we all seemed to have the answer to. So she gave out a silly laugh for her mistake and said "Now I know what level I am in."
That line of her's offended a few classmates. Some more than others. To them, it sounded like, "now I know im with the stupid immigrants".
That day, we discussed about high taxes in Sweden. Some students, especially the ones from the US were against high taxes. Our teacher was, however, in favor of high taxes. She had a very opinionated mind when it came to taxes. Usually a strong opinion being expressed openly leads to problems. A student who was against the issue thought that the teacher was indirectly attacking her with words.
Two things that student hated about the teacher: The way she said how she can tell what level she is teaching, and that she is expressing her opinion about the importance of taxes.
The following week when our yearly teacher evlauation sheet came, that student was telling me how she doesn't feel satisfied with Eva. She wrote down as a complaint that a particular teacher has done acts of discrimination by belittling people and taking advantage of her students because they don't know swedish. This student turned out to be the only one with this complaint.
A 3 months later, we got this "Likabehandlingsplan". Basically a school handbook that shows all the rights of equality. Two whole days, there was no lecture. Instead, we went through the entire handbook, and defined discrimination and racism. After that, however, there was a big shock. On the last page of the handbook, there was that old evaluation sheet we got 3 months earlier. It was a student's handwriting on it. In fact, it was the student that reported our mentor Eva (No names were shown..niether the teacher nor the student), but i recognized it right away because i remember the student telling me exactly what she wrote, as well as Eva's quote.
We were asked if any of us felt discriminated at any time. If we were ever treated badly or differently. Truth was, there was never a time when we were belittled. This was a place with nobody BUT immigrants as students. Why would a racist teacher choose to work at sfi when he/she knows that their full time will be dedicated to people that are completely different from him/her?
The staff were very concerned with this whole issue because this was the first time after a very long time that a case like this had emerged.
I realized that day, i saw every single teacher going over the "likabehandlingsplan" for the entire 2 days, except one. I did not see Eva at all.
She came some weeks later, and she appeared different whenever she taught us. It always felt like a part of her personality was missing. There were times when I could tell that she was being a bit too nice just to satisfy us that she would never mean to hate us.
I felt so sorry for her. I wonder how she felt when she read that evaluation of her's. Her simple joke was taken pretty seriously. In reality, she was one of the nicest most helpful teachers in Globen.
There was no way she would be racist.
Her husband wasn't even Swedish.
This was an evaluatoin gone wrong.
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