Life is better Blonde

I'm 5 foot and a half, blonde, very girly and yes I drive a truck. I'm sure people are surprised and/or laugh when they see lil' ol' me jump down from the drivers seat. People always seem shocked when I drive through the parking lot and they see some blonde chick behind the wheel. Even one of my classmates stared at me wide-eyed the other day while asking if I drove a pickup truck. My reaction is always to laugh, I'm sure it is a funny sight to see. The sad fact is however that the way I look makes people call into question my ability to drive a larger than normal vehicle. Funnily enough my truck isn't even all that large compared to most other trucks. It is just the fact that girls who look and act like me don't usually drive that type of vehicle, which is sad because driving a truck can be really fun. I like to think that this is one of the many things that makes me unique and even though I am being discriminated against, I know that I can drive that truck and I can drive it well. I enjoy cars, my dad always took me around cars when I was a little girl and I like to drive interesting cars. So when I had the chance to get his old truck I pounced on it because I knew I would love it. So maybe I don't look like I the normal type of person who would drive a truck, but I do like driving it, so people can just stare and gawk all they want, I know I look funny, but I'm having fun. ;-)
I discriminate people all the time. It is one of my biggest flaws, one of which I am working very hard to get better about. One time in particular I can remember, is when I discriminated against one of my classmates who would later become one of my closest friends. I was sitting in the back of my darkened art history class at Kirkwood, huffing and puffing because I was late, like always (yes yet another flaw I am working on) when I saw the back of the blondest hair I had ever seen. "Who was that girl?" I thought. "Shes blonde, pretty, she dresses nice, I bet she is super-stuck up." She was always very intelligent about the classwork though, and she and I seemed to talk a lot about the same subjects. Then one day I saw her outside of school at Target and she smiled at me so I thought "hey she might not be as bad as I think." After that we both transferred to the University of Iowa and we became fast friends who happened to have a strange amount of similarities. Who was I talking about? If shes reading this, she knows who she is, eh Art of Blogging? hehe. Anyway my first judgment about her was way off and that is just one of many examples of why I am working on discriminating less and getting to know the individual more.
In my classroom I think respect and not making irrational judgments will be key. Just like in making judgments about art you must understand the story behind something before you can make a judgment about it. You wouldn't judge a painting without trying to figure out what it meant or the story behind why it was painted. Just like you shouldn't make judgments about why someone looks or acts a certain way. I think putting concepts like these into normal discussions in the classroom can help students understand it on a personal level.