Stretching Our Thinking

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"Stories and how they are told, who tells them, and how many stories are told are directly related to power" was a key aspect in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Ted Talk, "The Danger of A Single Story." As she continues to explain, power is also responsible for the creation of one definitive story about a person or culture and how inaccurate that is. A person's experiences cannot be wrapped up into a neat package and no one is exactly "one story." When she continued in her speech to talk about perspectives and how they too will depict very different stories, it really hit home. As an avid reader, it will now help to shape the stories that I read and to question whether I am learning the "single story" and if so, which perspective is that story being shared from. As I teach my students in research, is the source credible? This too should reflect in the stories that we hear in the mainstream media and in publications. Is the author credible and qualified to be teaching me about this story? Furthermore, this talk will help me to pursue multiple sides to that single story to broaden my perspectives and to fully understand that person or culture and see the depth that he or she truly has before making a simple one sentence definition. 

I chose Option 3 watching  The myth of Race Debinked in 3 minutes.. This short video was very interesting.  I actually watched it 3 times to digest what it was saying.  What resonated with me the most was how race was characterized initially due to political priorites and how ones race could actually be reclassified oif one crossed borders.  The human factor was totally unrecognized.

Many school districts launched into "action" around diversity, equity, and inclusion work in the summer of 2020. This action often included official statements and promises to investigate and take future steps. Two and a half years later, I am convinced that these equity traps are real and schools must directly confront them. Now that schools are reopened, I am hopeful the sense of urgency around educational equity will return. There is this notion that schools are getting "back to normal," which may be great for the wealthy white students who make up a large portion of our district's population. Back to normal, however, is not a positive thing for many students, especially those from historically marginalized groups. Schools must take an honest and uncompromising look at what the data makes clear - where students live, their income level, race, gender, and other factors remain predictors of success. It is the mission of the public school system to eliminate this predictability by providing all students with the resources, support, curriculum, and individualized instruction they need. The effort needs to be aware of the equity traps and avoid them. It can't be superficial - it needs to be brave, coordinated, genuine, systemic, and ongoing. It can't be the work of a single leader or teacher or even a committee - it must be embedded into everything educators do. Every decision they make, every assignment they grade, every student they interact with. So how do we get there? 

I watched "The Danger of A Single Story" and it makes we wish for more for our children. So many things that our children have access to rely on them only hearing a single story - social media thrives on the presentation and reaction to only a single story. In order to improve the lives of all children and adults, we need to expand the story that is available and present news and stories that aren't just from one perspective on social media.

I chose to read "Beware Equity Traps and Tropes" by Jamila Dugan, and one point that resonated with me was the "Equity Warrior". The idea that someone who has done a significant amount of research, learning, evaluating, and implementing be deemed as a student rather than an expert was something that caused a shift in my thinking. With any experience, there is a significant growth of knowledge where you feel more and more comfortable, until the scale tips and you feel as if you could never know enough because there is simply so much to learn. (I think of post-secondary research, especially, with this phenomenon.) This makes me wonder if the Equity Warrior does not always see themselves as an expert, but they are forced to behave as one, thus expanding upon other issues within a system.

I read this article from ACSD, and it does hit pretty close to home.  I feel like our district and me personally have fallen into some of these traps.  Seeing them broken down in this way was helpful, and forced some introspection on my part.  Great article.

In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Ted Talk, "The Danger of a Single Story," she discusses the misconceptions that Americans have about Africa and how little she saw herself in the literature she read as a young child. These days, I do believe authors are making more of an effort to be inclusive in their writing; for example, my nephew is nearly 2 years old and my sister, a book lover, reads him books from the library about families with two moms, disabled children, and people of ALL colors, including purple and green! I certainly do not remember having those options available to me as a child, which certainly shows a sign of progress in the right direction. I can, however, empathize with her regarding the way people stereotype her simply because she is from Nigeria. I agree with her sentiments that Western culture has led us to believe that Africa is a place with vast landscapes, wild animals, and war. Through her talk, she discusses the differences between even her family and one of her friend's families and the substantial difference between the two. Just as there are major differences in America, we should recognize that there are huge differences across all cities, towns, and continents (which are different than countries!). 

While listening to the Danger of a Single Story, I couldn't help but reflect on past experiences of thinking about other countries or cultures as just a single story. I feel like many people have biases about people and places based on a series of misguided information. They create a one-sided opinion because at the time it is the only thing they know to be true. It's hard to imagine anything else based on that one experience. By opening our eyes to new experiences, new people, new places, by talking, listening, and sharing, I feel like the single story can start to multiply and become a story with many chapters and characters. When this happens, maybe people can start to identify with one another, find compassion, find kindness, and find a commonality that brings us closer together instead of driving us further apart.

Reading through this article (and processing it as I went), my mind on several occasions wandered to (years’ worth of) professional development opportunities, staff development meetings, teacher inservice days, etc that were interesting, informative, important, and a “hot topic” at the time but that then, as most things tend to do, fizzled out before much time had passed. “The best laid plan…”, right? I think that the big “problem” with a lot of topics is lack of “buy-in”... How many people actually look forward to being asked to do something else/new/different/on top of what they already do? Not nearly as many as those people that drag their heels to the auditorium grumbling under their breath things that I won’t type here. It’s unfortunate because all trainings, etc are meant to help us all to be better humans and help our kiddos to be better humans. This article identifies this, too, with the traps and tropes that it mentions. I hope that, in our heart of hearts, every one of us wants to “do right” by others but that, maybe?, our levels of stress and obligation prevent us from always “doing right.” As we are asked to “do better” we need to actually buy-in and -both- want to “do better” AND do it well and do it right… we can’t just “want” it to happen in order for it to be successful, it needs to be a concerted effort. It’s a long, steep climb… but I’m hopeful that we’ll get there someday soonish.

I chose "The Danger of a Single Story by: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie." She tells the story how when we hear only one story over and over again we begin to believe that is how things are. When she began reading she was reading British and American stories. So when she began writing her stories portrayed white blue eyed characters.  What resonated with me was her story about her roommate. The roommate judged her before she even met her. She believes her roommates judgment was because she heard only one story of Africa and Africans and believed that was how every African was like. Sadly, I think in many ways that is how many Americans are. They hear the same one story over and over again and believe that is how everyone in a certain culture or nation is like. Instead of learning about that culture or the people we make assumptions and stereotype them. We need to learn more about others before we pass our judgment onto others. We need to learn more than "one story".