Are Kids More Open To Cultural Differences Than We Think? What I Learned As An Elementary Teacher
Last October, I stood by the snack table at my 3rd grade’s heritage potluck, hovering like a lifeguard waiting for someone to drown. Two weeks prior, 7-year-old Lila had joined our class after moving from Oaxaca City, and her mom had dropped off a large platter of tlayudas topped with lime-roasted chapulines—grasshoppers. I’d spent 10 minutes the night before mentally rehearsing what I’d say if someone yelled “EW GROSS” across the room. I’d even pulled up a quick kid-friendly article about edible insects to pass around, just in case.
Before I could move in to introduce the platter, Javi, a kid who brings fried potato chips in his lunch every day, leaned in. “What are the crunchy brown things?” he asked Lila, who’d wandered over to grab a piece. “Chapulines,” she said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “My abuela roasts them every Sunday. They’re salty.” Javi nodded. “My dad fries crickets when we go camping up north. They taste like popcorn. Can I have a bite?” Within 90 seconds, half the class was lined up behind him, asking for turns. No one made a face. No one whispered. A few said it was too salty, one asked for a second piece, and then everyone went back to talking about the upcoming soccer game. I stood there holding my unopened pre-written explanation, feeling stupid.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. Back in January, we welcomed Zainab, a new student who wears a hijab, to our class. I spent the weekend reading up on how to answer kids’ questions respectfully, prepped a little note to send home to parents reminding everyone to be kind. On her first day, a boy sitting next to her raised his hand mid-snack and asked, “Why do you wear that scarf on your head?” I opened my mouth to step in, but Zainab answered first: “It’s for my religion. I started wearing it when I turned 7, same as my mom and my big sister. It’s my favorite color, see?” The boy nodded, said “Cool, my soccer jersey is blue too,” and went back to eating his Goldfish. That was it.
As adults, we spend so much time worrying about how to teach kids to accept cultural difference that we often miss the obvious: most of the time, kids are already way more open than we are. We’re the ones who carry the awkwardness. We’re the ones who’ve learned to treat difference like a big, sensitive topic that needs careful handling. We’ve absorbed the unspoken rule that you don’t ask questions about things that are different from what you know, because you might say the wrong thing. Kids haven’t learned that rule yet. When they see something different, they just ask. It’s not malice, it’s curiosity.
I learned that the hard way a couple years ago, with Farah, a first grader who joined our class from Somalia. She brought a homemade sambusa for snack one day, and I heard a kid ask “What’s that?” I immediately jumped in, started explaining that this was a traditional food from Somalia, that many families make it for special occasions. Farah just looked up at me and laughed. “It’s my Tuesday snack,” she said. “My mom makes them every week. I eat one after art class.” I’d turned her normal after-school snack into a museum exhibit, all because I was so focused on “teaching diversity” that I forgot to just let it be normal.
Over the years, I’ve picked up a few small things that work way better than the big forced diversity lessons we’re often told to plan. First, I don’t step in to answer questions about a kid’s culture or identity before they get a chance to speak. It’s their experience, not a topic for me to explain. If a kid asks why Lila’s family speaks Spanish at home, I just nod and say “That’s a good question, Lila, do you want to talk about that?” Nine times out of ten, she answers more naturally and honestly than I ever could.
Second, I don’t shut down rude-sounding questions by saying “shhh, that’s not polite to ask.” Shutting down the question tells kids that difference is something scary you shouldn’t talk about, which makes it way more of a big deal than it needs to be. If the person whose difference is being asked about is comfortable answering, that’s all that matters. If they’re not, I just say “That’s a good question, but that’s personal, and Lila doesn’t have to answer it today if she doesn’t want to.” That’s it, no big fuss.
Third, I don’t make a big event out of every cultural tradition unless the kid wants to. We don’t do a “Mexican culture day” where we all make ponchos and eat store-bought tacos. If Lila wants to bring in photos of her birthday celebration in Oaxaca to show the class, we make time for that. If she doesn’t, we don’t force it. Most cultural traditions are just part of everyday life for the kid, so we let them stay that way.
Of course, this isn’t to say kids never pick up biased ideas from the adults around them. I’ve had to step in when a kid repeated something rude they heard at home, same as any other teacher. But more often than not, the awkwardness and the hesitation comes from me, from the other adults, not from the kids. We expect them to be judgmental, so we overprepare, overexplain, and end up making difference feel weird when it didn’t have to be.
Last week, I was walking out to car line after school and spotted Lila and Javi leaning against the fence, swapping snacks out of their backpacks. Lila handed Javi a small plastic bag of roasted chapulines to take home to his dad. Javi handed her a pack of his favorite cheddar crackers, the ones with the little shapes. No one took a photo. No one announced what a great moment of connection it was. It was just two kids trading snacks they liked.
I still catch myself hovering sometimes, ready to step in and fix something that isn’t broken. I still mess up and overexplain when I should just stay quiet. But that day, I just kept walking. It was working fine without me.
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