Understanding Literacy – December 7

            Growing up, my family started in more of the lower class and made our way up to the middle class. I am white, and I have privilege because of that, but I also know what it was like to have parents who worked paycheque to paycheque. My parents sent me to a catholic school because both sets of grandparents are Catholic/United. Although I went to a catholic school from kindergarten to grade 12, my parents never participated in going to church or things of that sort. Being diagnosed with a learning disability at such a young age has also really shaped who I am today. My parents always preached to my sister and me that “treat others with respect until proven different.” So, I did just that; I respected everyone until they proved that they did not deserve my respect. Due to my learning disability, I did not get much respect from my classmates and even teachers. While in school, I was taught that God made everyone equal, but while at home, my family was very racist and did not think certain groups of people deserved to be here. I had to teach myself that what my family was thinking and saying was not the right thing. I had to learn how to think differently from them, but I did struggle with that as my family was always like that. While my parents preaching “treat others with respect, until proven different,” it got very confusing to me as I got older as they did not always treat others with respect for no reason.

            In my elementary schooling years, we only ever learnt about the Eurocentric perspective. Due to only ever learnt this way, I started to believe my family was right with everything they were saying. During one of my high school years, we learnt more about the indigenous side of things, which opened my eyes to the world and about how my family was. My one high school teacher was a young white female, and she was very passionate about teaching us the truth about Canada. I remember going home to my one grandparent’s house to tell them what I learnt that day and getting yelled at because of what I was saying. I was told that I was wrong and that the indigenous people “did not have it that bad.” University is when I able to learn about my own biases. While it has been hard growing up thinking one way and one day find out that the stories I was told my whole life were not true, it was tough to come back from. I fought hard to have my family hear my beliefs, but to this day, I still get judged, yelled at and even start fights with my family unintentionally. To unlearn or work against these biases would be to research and educate ourselves on these topics. It would be great to educate people like my grandparents, but they might be a lost cause on this.

            I remember school being very focused on European stories, such as anything Shakespeare’s. I remember enjoying reading them in my grade 9 year, but once I got to grade 10, we started reading more Shakespeare’s. Although it is in the curriculum to read those stories, it made me wonder why we could not read a story on indigenous people and their lives. I do not remember any of my English classes touching on anything about indigenous people. The only time we ever talked about indigenous people was in my Native Studies class. Learning now that treaty education needs to be a part of each subject, I feel very ashamed of how little I learnt about it in each of my classes.