Teacher Could Have Learned New Perspective From African Immigrant Youth: When Birds Fly, 4-1 = 0!

Derlad Wing Sue is a professor of counseling psychology at California State University, Hayward and a faculty member for the Columbia University Executive Training Programs. I recently ran across this story he tells online...

A renowned scholar of multiculturalism proposes picturing the United States as a cultural mosaic rather than a melting pot. He calls on counselors of minority clients to take the road less traveled: to rise above racism, embrace ethnic diversity, and employ varied intervention strategies so the needs of culturally different clients can be met.

Several years ago I heard an interesting tale from a Nigerian counselor who was attending one of my multicultural counseling workshops. The tale, often told to Nigerian children, goes something like this.

A white female elementary school teacher in the United States posed a math problem to her class one day. “Suppose there are four blackbirds sitting in a tree. You take a slingshot and shoot one of them. How many are left?” A white student answered quickly, “That’s easy, One subtracted from four is three.” An African immigrant youth then answered with equal confidence, “Zero.” The teacher chuckled at the latter response and stated that the first student was right and that, perhaps, the second student should study more math. From that day forth, the African student seemed to withdraw from class activities and seldom spoke to other students or the teacher.

This story gets to the heart of some fundamental issues confronting the multicultural movement in the United States. If the teacher had pursued the African student’s reasons for arriving at the answer zero, she might have heard the following, “If you shoot one bird, the others will fly away.” Nigerian educators often use this story to illustrate differences in world views between United States and African cultures. The Nigerians contend that the group is more important than the individual, that survival of all depends on interrelationships among the parts, and that individualism should be de-emphasized for the good of the whole.

Wonderful story, isn't it? Do you have a comment to share?