While we were discussing Native American in class today, one of the students made the whooping ‘Indian Yell’ noise that you hear in old movies.  There were several Native students in the class, and it was difficult to tell if they were offended or not, but I was not impressed by the way Mr. Homan handled the situation.  Of course, the student who made the noise got a nice big laugh out of half the class, but Mr. Homan just said ‘Hey, that’s not appropriate.  Stop.’  This seems not a harsh enough response to derogatory remarks in the classroom.  It’s possible that the student didn’t really think about it, and thought the sound would just be funny, but I tend to take a little bit harder stance on racism in the classroom.  I would have definitely had a discussion with the student after about why that was not ok.  Now the student is going to think only about the big laugh he received, and not the slight remark he received from the teacher.  It’s especially important to be hard on things like that if you have native students in the class, as you want them to feel comfortable in that environment.