Mya Helgason
I was raised in a family full of discussion and critical thinking. We spent hours around the supper table, during car rides or around the campfire talking about everything from religion and politics to social justice issues and Canadian history. We were taught to be inclusive and accepting and that everyone we met was worthy of care and respect. Many of my family members are educators so we were always being challenged to see things from multiple perspectives and to embrace learning and growth as an important part of being a good citizen. Because of this, my path as an educator seemed like a natural one and connecting with children has always been something that I consider as one of my strengths. As I have faced challenges in my life, I have always turned to writing as one of the ways that I cope with what I am going through. I am best able to communicate my message through the written word and I often feel clarity after a good session of writing. So, when this assignment was presented, it seemed like a natural fit for me to combine both of these passions and create a children’s story to share my journey.
Because of my upbringing, I came into the faculty of education with what I thought was a very good understanding of diversity and inclusiveness. I believed that everyone was equal and that if we all went into the world with open minds and hearts then an equitable society was possible. I believed in the idea of being “colour blind” and that people should be defined by who they were instead of where they came from. I had a bit of an understanding about racism and I knew that there were people in the world who were full of hate and promoted division but I hadn’t ever taken the time to explore the many levels and layers of racism. I knew about the atrocities of residential schools but again, I believed that simply going forward with love and peace was the path to healing and change.
At the beginning of my book Kimimela means Butterfly, you see my oversimplification of this topic. The main characters are the best of friends and the idea that they are exactly alike and fully accepting of one another is conveyed over and over. It was only when the girls had the chance to listen to the stories of Kimimela’s Unci that they began to look at things deeper. It is this part of the story that I parallel to my journey in the faculty of education and the lessons that I have learned from going deeper into history and the associated ramifications for our society today. I have learned that it is not enough to be “colour blind”. In fact, being colour blind is actually doing everyone a disservice. As educators, it is our job to understand where our students are coming from and to see how their skin colour, or origin, or sexual orientation might impact the way that they are treated in society. As I learned from Professor Donna Swapp in ECS 102, it is not enough to be anti-racist; it is also imperative that we examine our own white privilege and the way that our own upbringing and place in society affects the way that we see the world and make decisions in our classrooms. I feel extremely blessed to have been able to listen and learn from so many wise voices and kind hearts, including Joseph Naytowhow, Charlene Bearhead, and Monique Gray Smith, and Donna Swapp. Just as the girls in the story listen to the story of Unci to learn and grow, it is so important that we are open to listening and learning from people who experience oppression and who can teach us about inclusion and healing and about how we can go forward as educators to be better advocates for all of the students we teach.
At the end of my story, the narrator re-examines her bond with her best friend and reiterates the ways that they are the same, but she now sees that their differences are important too. She knows that understanding her friend’s past will help to make her a better friend to Kimimela and that she still has so much learning to do. This is how I feel about my journey to truth and reconciliation. I know that I still have so much learning to do and the more listening and growing I do, the better equipped I will be to take on the role of an educator.
I have set goals for myself as I go through this journey. I want to critically examine myself as a person and the beliefs that I have that guide and motivate me. Reading the article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh has made me want todig deeper into my white privilege, from the obvious to the subtle, so I can help to break down the barriers that privilege creates for minoritized people. I want to explore our education system and its foundation and understand how a system built on colonialism and patriarchy does not benefit our students. Reading Professor Faitma Pirbhai-Illich’s article, “A relational approach to decolonizing education: working with the concepts of invitation and hospitality”, about how entrenched our education system is in this history opened my eyes to something I didn’t even realize existed. I want to create a classroom that goes beyond the four walls and give my students opportunities to learn through many different avenues. As I learned from the Centre for Youth and Society’s pamphlet, called “Decolonization in an Educational Context”, “part of the process of decolonizing education is re-establishing links to the community”.
I hope to be in a position one day to challenge curriculum and ensure that content is representative of more than one group of people and accurate in its depictions of history and society. Most of all I want to listen. I want to seek out people that are willing to share their stories and perspectives and to put faces to these grand concepts that we are learning about. I want to give my students the opportunity to hear these stories too and to feel like they are understood and not alone. I want to make them feel safe and heard in my classroom and know that they are going to be given the opportunity to grow and achieve their full potential.
References
Centre for Youth and Society. (n.d.). Decolonization in an Educational Context. Victoria, British Columbia.
McIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. National SEED Project. Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://nationalseedproject.org/Key-SEED-Texts/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack
Pirbhai-Illich, F., & Martin, F. (2019, October). “A relational approach to decolonizing education: working with the concepts of invitation and hospitality”. Research Gate. Retrieved March 29, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fatima-Pirbhai-Illich/publication/336701963