Wheelchair man - The New Afghan Superhero

[Master]

[Gandalf]

Good story. I felt bad about his teacher telling him to look them in the eye. You have to understand the student and not force your ways on them. I don't know why such people become teachers. Can't you see that this chap is from a different culture and has been in the wars a bit? Anyways, I wish him well.

[brocktonblockbust]

Not only should he look his teacher in the eye but he should learn to make eye contact with everybody in society since that is the way we do it here

[brocktonblockbust]

More rubbish from Gandalf. Is the teacher not essential in helping the student assimilate into a new culture with new customs?

[Gandalf]

If someone is culturally different or shy, then you should have some empathy for that situation. Forcing someone to look you in the eye is just a weird thing to request of a disabled child from another culture. A degree of eye contact is necessary for communication, but everyone is different and should be treated accordingly. If I have a shy student I am not going to demand constant eye contact. I want them to enjoy the lesson and feel at ease. You cannot demand that someone change, you encourage it through nurture and support. "Look me in the eye when I talk to you" is an authoritarian approach that you would never see me use. You can reach students more effectively with understanding and more subtle methods.

[brocktonblockbust]

If someone is culturally different or shy, then you should have some empathy for that situation. Forcing someone to look you in the eye is just a weird thing to request of a disabled child from another culture. A degree of eye contact is necessary for communication, but everyone is different and should be treated accordingly. If I have a shy student I am not going to demand constant eye contact. I want them to enjoy the lesson and feel at ease. You cannot demand that someone change, you encourage it through nurture and support. "Look me in the eye when I talk to you" is an authoritarian approach that you would never see me use. You can reach students more effectively with understanding and more subtle methods.

what the hell are you on about. Any person needs to assimilate. A kid who lowers his head anytime he is spoken to will not interact so well, and must be cajoled, nuanced, gently directed to learn to make eye contact.

[Gandalf]

"And my teachers would get so mad when they talked to me because I would look down - that's very respectful in Afghanistan. They'd say, "Look me in the eye when I talk to you!" There were a lot of cultural misunderstandings.

I cut and pasted the section above from the BBC article. As you can see Brock, teachers would get angry with this poor, little disabled kid. Obviously he is from a different culture, but he also could have been very shy or possibly even had asperger's syndrome or even a combination of things. He certainly must have had a lot of trauma from what he had experienced in Afghanistan. You don't teach children by using violence. As a teacher and especially one who teaches people from different cultures, you should have some understanding of who they are and why they might behave in the manner they do. To shout at a kid like that because he struggles to look at you indicates a lack of understanding and awareness.