Prompt 1: How was your upbringing/schooling shaped how you “read the world?” What biases and lenses do you bring to the classroom? How might we unlearn/work against these biases?
Prompt 2: Which “single stories” were present in your own schooling? Whose truth mattered?
I grew up in a small town most of my life. The people in this town as I grew up and for many years after I left, it remained a white, privileged, middle-class community. Because of these aspects of my home town, my upbringing was relatively sheltered. I had a hard time understanding some things about the world and why some people were treated differently. I suppose this caused me to develop biases about my culture and how dominant it can be in our education system. Since I grew up in the situation I did I feel as if I look through a white, privileged, middle-class lenses. I hope to change this as I work in classrooms so that I do not miss out on any opportunities or offend someone. I want to break the stereotypes associated with the many groups or people, including the ones I fall into. I want to introduce other styles of literature into my classroom and have open discussions with my faculty/staff members, students, and parents so that I can get as much assistance and guidance as possible in order to break the stereotypes within my contexts. I feel like one of the best ways to break these biases is to discuss them and educate ourselves on the truths, ignorance is the biggest influencer on biases.
For the most part as I went through school, I experienced books and readings that were predominantly written by and about straight, male, middle-class, white folk. The only content I witnessed in school that had other groups of people was written in negative ways. This causes my single story to be predominantly that of middle-class white society. This mirrored my own experiences. This setup also caused me to have minimal content to develop a single story of other groups or people. I suppose my single story for other groups was predominantly negative causing me to believe the biases created. This changed as I came into university when I was exposed to other literature and experiences.
Growing up in a small town with little diversity then being introduced to diversity later in life is an important reality in Saskatchewan and western Canada. This reality poses unique challenges and barriers for both students and teachers, and because often times it is members of the same community that return to teach, the cycle continues. How do you think, from first-hand experience as a student, can we support rural teachers in anti-oppressive teaching methods that can embrace diversity in more homogenous communities?
I definitely feel like any sort of stigma or bias should be looked at and taken into consideration. I remember having so many biases living in the homogenous community I lived in but being exposed to diverse communities helped me change those thoughts. I hope teachers will further this by eliminating as much bias and stereotype from their classrooms and allowing for a safe space for diversity to occur in. I also believe it would be beneficial to bring in people from the community who are considered part of the diverse to talk with the class and maybe take the class to places where diversity is.
Thank you for your comments on single stories. I, myself grew up in a small town where single stories were very prevalent as well. It is so important that when we teach, that we are addressing multiple stories rather than just one. Our students will be appreciative of it.
Yes I completely agree. It is also important to not impose our narratives and stories onto these children or others for that matter. Everyone experiences their own stories but to consider stories that are not yours is also important. Thank you for commenting!