I began my student teaching as an eager teacher with great expectations of repeating the same experience I had experienced as a child. I didn't. Instead, I drove up to an old run-down gated school in the center of similar looking apartment buildings. The children were unkempt, often times too hungry or sleepy to focus on me or my stories of suburban children with yards and pets. The first grade children in my room were not the children in my mind. The children who existed in my imagination were bright-eyed happy faces. They wore new shoes and new backpacks filled with supplies. Sadly, that was not the case at all. The children of my classroom were far from that. The stereotypes about these children flowed with ease in the staff room. It broke my heart and quickly I spent as few minutes in the staff room as possible. I didn't want to hear things like, "Those parents don't value education, so don't bother." Or worse, the assumption that the kids were not wanted or neglected. "They are more concerned about their next high than with their own kids." If only those teachers had taken some time to learn why they were hungry, sleepy, or dirty. Or better yet, why the homework wasn't done. Most times it was because their parents worked at night, not because they didn't value education. Their clothes were filthy because money or time only allowed for one visit to the laundromat. They were hungry because there was no food at home. They were sleepy because their parents were arguing late into the night, or they were at the baby sitter until their parents picked them up after midnight. The message in this video is an important one. It is a message that we all need to hear. We need to view with an open heart and without cemented stereotypes in our minds. The stereotypes and the stories we share as factual or real-world are not always someone else's real world. Teachers, meet your students with open hearts and eyes. Choose your materials to be real world that is true for their real world. Their world may or may not be as yours or your version of "normal." Be kind. Be understanding.
Resource:
http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
Resource:
http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story