In this weeks blog we were ask to respond to the following prompt:
How has 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?
Which “single stories” were present in your own schooling? Whose truth mattered?
I was born in the philippines, we did not have much, we live in a small house with a little backyard where my younger brother and I used to spend most of our time with playing. My parents made enough income to feed the family and go out once every other weekend. I was very active at school, we would have maths, science, English, Filipino and social sciences as our main subject and I remember having PE (physical educationl) once a week. At the time my parents stressed the fact that I was fortunate enough to go to school because some kids were not able to and I was determined to do well in all my subjects in order not to let my parents down. One biased opinion that people around me had was that people who did not go to school or did not have Education are not gonna get very far in life or will be less successful in finding jobs. We also had english as one of our major subjects so when I moved In canada, i was in grade 4 and was familiar with the language and was able to communicate with my peers. At some point I had trouble making sense of what I was learning because it was a whole new environment for me, especially with literature because as kumashiro said “students have already learned to make sense of the world through particular lenses”, issues of race and racism did not occur to me until I moved to a different country and I was exposed to poverty at a very young age and the social differences in my community. Throughout my whole childhood the bias that many people around me had made me who I am today, the whole purpose of education is to be successful and have more opportunities in finding a job in the future. I have expanded my views and while I still believe that it is important I have also grown more aware of the different worldviews/perspective and social issues and how I could approach it as a future educator.
The most prominent “single story” in my school experience was the different statuses in my country. On who gets to be “literate” or not and who is privileged enough to attend school and have Education. This could also relate to my early school years in canada, although i did well academically in the philippines and was at the top of my class, I had trouble understanding some of the materials in school because of the use of language. But over time I learned and was able to adapt to this new environment. I was able to learn about other cultures, and different perspectives of the world. As an educator, I think it is important to know about different perspectives and worldviews and there is not just one way of learning.
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