Tolerance is not enough:
When I was in high school, we had a “diversity day” every year. During this day, we had many different speakers come and talk about their different viewpoints. The effort was to ensure that we did not get stuck in our little bubble (which was formidable because I graduated with only 125 other kids).
The unfortunate part of this event (and much of my k-12 experience) is that we did not talk about why Diversity itself is important. No one stood up and made the case for why Diversity and advocating for it was a shared value that we should all aspire to. We didn’t talk about the social science of group think and we didn’t go into the benefits of a diverse problem solvers.
I believe the fear of change that you describe is not knowing the direct benefit that diverse cultural representation can have on your life. It is only when we experience it and see its value that we can truly embrace the change and stop simply “tolerating” it.
via Working in Education through the Language Lens: I don’t tolerate “tolerance”!.
