The Friday right before the March holidays, I delivered an English lesson to present on a particular topic that seemed to be troubling students with a certain trait that is discriminated by their peers.
Yes - discrimination.
I started off by sharing this song by Black Eyed Peas - Where is the Love and discussed the lyrics with them.
From the short analysis of the lyrics and introduction to KKK, racial discrimination and the reasons behind it, I led them into another form of discrimination that is more applicable to us; thank goodness for our racial peace and harmony for that, for, weight discrimination seemed to be more widespread in Singapore and has more impact on youths today. I took it upon myself to reveal to them the true agony of people that possess weight that exceeds the ideal.
With images of 'beautiful' and 'sexy' celebrities, I required them to reflect on their perception on 'beauty', media influence on their notion of 'beauty', and what are the qualities of their boy/girlfriend or spouse that they look for.
Now, reading their reflection after the March holidays, I realised, many of them are not as superficial as I thought they'd be. Some brought up points about inner beauty, some wrote that the virtues of the opposite gender is more attractive than their exterior. Deep within their exterior and occasional bullying of plump people, they understand beyond the skin-deep notion of beauty that is cruelly but widely portrayed by the media, which resulted in the societal level of discrimination against them.
I have yet to read the reflections of the heavier classmates, but I hope that my presentation have impacted them positively, reducing their negativity towards their size, increasing their long-deprived self-esteem.
