I think, unfortunately, most people in society view the world with a bias. Upbringing and schooling usually can contribute to this, which is why it’s important to acknowledge all worldviews at a young age. 

For example, I grew up going to a very small school from pre-school until Graduation. This means that my school offered viewpoints of the world from this perspective. My school didn’t consist of a lot of diversity, so I was unaware of a lot of viewpoints before University. For example, my school was very heterocentric. There weren’t a lot of students or staff within the LGBTQ+ community, and the small school mentality meant that individuals were quite old school and presuming. Although some of my friends were LGBTQ+, as a general whole the school lacked LGBTQ+ representation through classes. I can’t recall works of literature, etc. regarding the LGBTQ+ community. This means that a lot of individuals were misinformed on the community. This could even be biases that one doesn’t realize they’re presuming, such as seeing a man and a woman and thinking they’re a couple. This can be improved with diverse literature, and representation, such as reading multiple novels on the LGBTQ+ community.

Another lens I hadn’t thought of regarding the classroom, was the lack of diversity of authors. Lots of the required stories within curriculum are written by white males. It’s important to include diverse authors that can speak on their worldviews and perspectives. One might not think of researching whose story they’re reading, as they’ve always been in the curriculum. However, only reading stories written by a certain perspective can lead to the ‘single story’ Chimamanda Adichie is talking about in her Ted Talk. 

Adichie talks about ‘the single story’ she received with her roommate. Her roommate presumed that since she was from Nigeria, she listened to ‘tribal music’, couldn’t speak English, and couldn’t use a stove (Adichie, Chimamanda). This was ‘a single story’, as the roommate didn’t understand Adichie’s culture. This could be because of lack of representation as well. Adichie talks about all of the books she read including white people in the snow eating apples, which is a life she wasn’t living in Nigeria (Adichie, Chimamanda). However, she understood this culture when reading about that, seeing it was the ‘norm’. The roommate must not’ve been taught information on other cultures in her learning, or even if there was, the reading must’ve only included one perspective on Nigeria that gave her these presumptions. 

It’s important to bring diversity in the classroom so students don’t presume all individuals of one culture or group are the same. Accurate representation would help students understand the world around them without biases. Correct information would bring an understanding to students about groups that aren’t their own.

Works Cited

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “The danger of a single story”. TED. TEDGlobal. 2009. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en