Helping children reflect on stereotypes
I recently observed a class in France where the teacher asks her primary school children to reflect on Renoir’s painting of “Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children”* where Marguérite Charpentier sits beside her three-year-old son Paul. Following the fashion of the time, his hair has not yet been cut and his clothes match those of his sister Georgette, who perches on the family dog.
The children were asked to guess the title of the painting (answers were : a mother and her daughters; a mother and her twins), and to guess the names of the children ( answers were of course all girls’ names). The children were astonished to hear that the younger child’s name was “Paul”. A fascinating discussion followed reflecting on assumptions we make because of the appearance and the dress of another person.
A great lesson which could be adapted to all of us, to remind us not to necessarily believe our first impressions and assumptions.
* http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/07.122
