Before this weeks reading, I never really thought much about how I read the world or the lenses I have that shape the world I see. Growing up I came from a smaller town where everyone in my class was mainly white with mainly white female teachers. I was never really exposed to anything else until I got to high school where I saw other cultures in my school and more than just female teachers. Since I was growing up in an environment where there were mainly white students and white female teachers, I never really had to think about how this lens shapes how I read the world. The biases and lenses I bring into the classroom would first be growing up in an environment where I am part of the dominant culture and never put in a situation where I had to deal with being discriminated against. These lenses I have formed growing up can really be challenged when I am faced with a situation where there aren’t just white people.
Some ways we might unlearn/work against these biases would be first to acknowledge that we all have these biases and sometimes it’s not something we have full control of but we can change how we act and respond to situations. By learning about biases, we can better deal with them when in situations where we need to control the biases we have towards other people. As teachers we need to understand that many of our students may come from cultures and races where they are discriminated against and bias is very present in their everyday lives. Even actions we think aren’t biased may still have some bias in them without us realizing because of the lenses we have when viewing the world. By being aware of the biases we have and working on how they alter the way we read the world can help us in helping our students.
The “single stories” that were present in my schooling would be that boys are better at sports and the typical blue-eyed white person as the one who is superior. Other stories include the western family or ideal family being the “normal” family. These stories aren’t necessarily accurate or correct but they are constantly repeated in media and in schools so we feel that they are the only story. Having these single stories doesn’t allow us to get the full picture about someone or where they come from. In the video, Chimamanda Adichie talks about how we see these single stories and assume we know everything about someone even though we only see a part of them. Since we assume and judge before we actually know the person and their situation, we use these single stories when we read the world and those around us.
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