Today several of my students got into an argument about whether or not Israelis are inherently bad. Not exactly where I had planned on our conversation on perspectives and open mindedness to go. But surprisingly it fit right in. Applying the words good or bad to a person is not open minded, it does not allow for differences of opinion, values or beliefs, and it defines a person based on a very limited perceived image. We discussed whether a starving person stealing food in order to survive would make that person evil/bad. Stealing is commonly held to be bad, and yet not a single one of my students were willing to consider a person 'bad' if they were only taking food to survive.
We also discussed whether or not a person who never stole, but never helped anyone and was greedy and selfish was bad/evil. In fact they were more ready to condemn this person then the first, even though many of them come from very affluent families and seldom think about those who have less then they do. In the end we agreed to disagree on the Israeli issue (deeply seated prejudices held in this part of the world) but decided that maybe a person isn't stuck as good or bad. Instead it is their actions that would be termed good or bad and any person can be encouraged to make good choices.
A rather heavy discussion for day 3 of the school year, but if this is the kind of class I have gotten for the year we may have a lot of good discussions and deep thinking before the end. Here's hoping they someday let that Israel prejudice go though. The amount of hate felt with no idea why they hate or what the consequences could be is really quite depressing.
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