Tolerance

What tools can we use to stay tolerant and be empathic and open-minded?

As the dictionary says, tolerance is “the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with”. Tolerance is the respect for people’s opinions, thoughts and habits, when they are different to our likes. As global citizens we have to be aware of the differences and similarities that we can have with people from other countries of the world. We have to comprehend that there is not only one right way of life, if not our planet is full of different cultures, traditions, people, habits and routines. Being tolerant and open-minded we can accept other ways of life different from our own, meeting new people and enriching our global knowledge.

Actually, we live in a society that every day becomes more globalized; where everything is connected, linked and shared. People’s migration to other countries of the world has been increasing during the last decades, sharing cultural aspects and traditions to different people. As teachers, we have to see the knowledge of new cultures as the enrichment and the improvement of our personal development and culture. Pupils have to know that meeting new people they can discover different points of view, cultures, traditions and experiences. They have to see diversity as a chance to understand the world using different glasses, different perspectives or different points of view. Children have to know that there is not any cultures better or worse than our own culture, if not they are only different. They have to respect and to be tolerant with other traditions from around the world, but, if we want to transmit that to our pupils, first of all, we as teachers and as citizens have to put these values into practice to become a model to follow.

From my point of view, the best way to stay tolerant and be empathic and open-minded is the knowledge. Sometimes, we give our opinion and we judge without knowing the deep reasons of why other people do the things like that. For me, as more new things and culture we know, more open-minded we are. Knowledge is the key to understand other cultures from around the world and to understand why they behave in that way. We have to respect that every culture has their own traditions and that they have their own reasons to follow them. Pupils must know that in other places of the world there are people that have different routines and different ways of life, and they have to see that as a way to increase their knowledge and to grow up as global citizens. Each culture is one way of living, but not the right way, and children should know as many cultures as they can, in order to become respectful, tolerant and open-minded.

On the other hand, to access to that knowledge that allow pupils to be tolerant and open-minded, I consider that we have to exhibit curiosity and openness, we have to respect and accept different cultures using communications with others. In my opinion, one of the best ways to understand a culture is to ask questions to the people keeping a dialogue that allows us to understand the reasons of their behaviour. Going with a native citizen of that country is a good chance to discover their daily life and to know how their culture is. After that, it is also important to reflect on the experiences and the situations that we lived in that new culture, because it is important to ask questions ourselves to interpret and to comprehend why they do that.

To respect and to be tolerant, we have to know cultures behaviours and to be aware of their reasons and their ways of life. Moreover, we can use that knowledge to compare them to own culture, developing new perspectives through comparison and contrast. It is important that pupils are aware of their own culture and other cultures, to become critical, tolerant and open-minded. And, as I have said before, one of the best ways to understand a culture is to communicate with people and to keep dialogues that help us to comprehend the reason of their behaviours.

To exemplify the use of those tools to become tolerant and open-minded, I am going to develop briefly different activities that we can carry out in our classes in order to take benefit of pupil’s diversity. For instance, if we have different pupils from different places of the world, they can be like “experts of their culture” where they have to explain to their classmates their culture and habits in their own country. Furthermore, they can also put into practice different traditions in order to realize and comprehend better the culture. On the other hand, we can also plan intercultural weeks where each week is based on a different country and culture, or carry out international lunch where pupils must bring typical food for their own country. From my point of view, if every pupil in the class knows the culture and the country of the other pupils, it is easier to be respectful, tolerant and open-minded.

What kind of questions can you ask in order to reach understanding of a known-unknown situation?

In order to reach understanding of a known-unknown situation, we can approach to the unfamiliar situation with imagination. First of all, I think that we can make hypothesis asking ourselves why they do that or why they behave in that way. After that, we can ask questions such as: “What is the reason of their behaviour? Why they do that? Why our culture and habits are a little bit different? What are the causes and the origins of their traditions? But also, what are our similarities with them?”

Apart from reflect ourselves, it is important to communicate with people who are experts from that new culture, in order to keep a dialogue based on those questions to achieve knowledge about the country. Once we have replied those questions and we have acquired knowledge about their reasons of why, it is important to interpret and to compare the new culture, in order to comprehend the new perspectives and to respect and accept the new culture as a synonym of enrichment.

It is our challenge to grow up future global citizens that behave tolerant, respectful and open-minded. Pupils must know that their own culture is only one, only one way of life. They should know that there are other types of life in other places of all around the world. Children must have curiosity to meet new people and know other cultures and traditions, enriching their personal development, increasing their knowledge and becoming global citizens that can life in other places of the world adapting to their rules and traditions.