I grew up in a small town called Southey which is only 40 minutes north of Regina. There is only one school in Southey which is K-12 throughout the school there are only about 300 students. My graduating class had 36 kids and more than half of us were together right from the start, so I feel most of us had a pretty positive school experience. I was also very fortunate to have strong relationships with my teachers and I am lucky enough to still have some good relationships today. Since I went to school with a very small group, I had a pretty good experience. My town is far from the ‘best’ town but when I was younger I definitely had that mind set. I think I had this mind set because I was never exposed to any major problems or hardships; my parents were happily married, I had an older and younger sister, as well as an older half brother, I never had to worry about not being able to play the sports I wanted and I had a good house to live in. I would say my schooling was very one sided. for example we were only taught about white culture, straight sexuality, and male and female genders. Being taught this way created biases and opining I did not realize I was having. Not learning about other cultures, sexuality, and genders makes us lack knowledge and understanding which can create lack of respect. I have now been away from my home town for three years and wow have I realized the type of life I lived was far from the lives many others lived. Throughout my degree I have really had the chance to open my eyes to the different lifestyles many have. I have learned that I will have students from very different lives and I have to the perfect life mentality out of my head so I can proved the best education possible for all of my students.
“Single Stories” found in my classroom consisted of the same roles and plots. It always included white middle class male and females. There was never any openly gay characters even though they “attempted” to show different sexualities. there was never any black roles and if there was, it was like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and dealt with racism back in history. While it is important to show the history of their treatment, there are always different ways they could present these roles. The truth that mattered were constantly being taught through the same roles the white males and females. All the other roles were considered outside the “social norms” and faced bias throughout the entirety of the story.
Hey Steph,
I liked reading your blog as I feel like I had an experience much like yours. Often times we are blind to our biases because you don’t know any different and the town often reinforces them. How do you think growing up in a small town has affected your learning in education now?