Written and designed by the staff of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Reproduce with permission only.
Geographic origin is a "semi-invisible" kind of diversity which, if addressed properly, can be an asset to a classroom. It can be a source of discomfort for students, however, if they feel they are the target of discrimination because of where they grew up. A teacher cannot, of course, know where students come from simply from looking at them on the first day of class, but regional accents do help to "place" students as soon as they participate orally in class. Unfortunately, many negative stereotypes are attached to accents from different parts of the country. Northerners, for example, are often seen as cold, abrupt, rude, "citified" people, unaware that they are trampling on others when they express their opinions. Southerners, by comparison, are often seen as rural, slow and courteous, but hardly intelligent or well educated. Beliefs about political and religious affiliations are usually associated with these stereotypes.
Such generalizations sound remarkably
silly, yet they are surprisingly prevalent on the campus. Because UNC is a state-sponsored
university, the majority of the undergraduates are from North Carolina, whereas
the majority of graduate students, TAs and professors are from other areas of
the United States or the world. This creates a certain "class consciousness"
on all sides about geographical origins. Regional accents can elicit strongly
prejudiced reactions both from your students' classmates and from your teaching
peers. The resulting clash of stereotypes can be quite hurtful to both teachers
and students, and if they are left unchallenged, they can create unnecessary
tensions in the classroom. All such reactions can negatively affect the learning
atmosphere of your class and your relations with your students. Establishing
a class "code of conduct" or discussion guidelines can help prevent
hurtful comments about others' geographical origin. If such an incident does
occur, it is important to confront the situation explicitly and not let it fester
in the hopes that it will go away. Any derogatory stereotypical comment about
someone in a class can only lead to further damage both to the students involved
and to your own ability to teach the class effectively.
Quotes from interviews with students on campus
One undergraduate student tells the
story of a TA who often made comments about Yankees and Southerners in class,
even when it had nothing to do with the subject matter:
"He would say things like, 'Yankees really do things backwards, in spite of the stereotypes about Southerners and Northerners.' One day the TA asked all of the students in the class who were from North Carolina to raise their hands. Then he asked all students from the South to raise their hands, then all Northern students. I was the only Northerner in the class and I felt so uncomfortable that I didn't raise my hand at all. I felt really uncomfortable because I didn't know why. There was no point to it. The TA never explained why he asked us to raise our hands.
"This TA gave the class a mid-term evaluation form and I thought an honest evaluation was what he wanted, so I mentioned that episode and also all of his comments about Yankees, saying that I thought they were inappropriate. The next day the TA made a big deal of it in class. He said 'Someone wrote about my talking about Yankees, and I just want to say that I didn't mean it. I mean, I wouldn't give you a bad grade.' It was like he was covering his tracks. He made me feel as if I was the one who'd made a big deal out of nothing. Apart from these comments after the evaluation, he never explained his comments about Yankees or why we had to raise our hands and say if we were Northern or Southern."
Another student tells the story of
a fellow TA who made her very uncomfortable with his attitudes about Southern
students:
"There was a graduate student who has received TA-ships for the past three semesters. He is not from this area. He grew up in New Jersey and went to a small private college in Maine. I am from North Carolina. I was a TA for two semesters. The first time I met him he informed me that students up North were smarter and not as slack as students here in the South. When I asked him what he meant by that he said, 'Oh, I don't mean that as an insult, it's just that everybody here takes five years to graduate, but where I went to school everybody did it in four years. But of course it was a much better school. Schools down here are not nearly of as high a quality as the ones up North.' When I told him that not only was I from the South, but that I and all of my Southern friends graduated in four years, he told me that we must be the exceptions, based on what he had observed. He then proceeded to "warn" me that the only bright students I would have in my labs would be students from up North, and that since the majority of my students would be from NC, I could expect a 'general level of stupidity' from them. Throughout the semester he has continued to make comments like 'as soon as I heard their accents I knew to brace myself for their stupid questions' and 'I just make the lab as hard as I can and then wade through their stupidity and ignorance.' He also is always harping on how the NC schools produce students who 'cannot read, write or count to 10.'
I think that what has made this so difficult for me as a Southerner, as a graduate of Carolina, and as a fellow teacher, about this constant barrage of stereotypes, over-generalizations, exaggerations and insults is that my two labs are predominantly native North Carolinian freshmen and I have found them to be intelligent, inquisitive and hardworking. I find it hard to believe that he could have gotten two labs full of stupid, lazy oafs from the same lectures that produced my two labs. The worst part of it is that I am positive that his attitude is more than obvious to his students. Last year, both semesters, he received the lowest evaluations out of all of [our department's] TAs.
But here is the kicker. He showed up here last week to hold a review sessions and had been drinking in order to 'put up with their stupidity and belligerence' as he informed me. At the end of last week, the TA-ships for next semester were handed out and he will once again be teaching-he was given the honors section. It seems he informed our graduate secretary that he was just too qualified to continue teaching the stupid students of the regular sections."
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Last Updated: January 30, 2001