During our large group seminars and PLC time, I rarely had serious objections or confusion regarding diversity in Canadian society and schools. I think that my generation is exposed to a lot more issues through social media and the internet, and because of that it seems we know more about the world around us than previous generations, or at least we have the tools to seek out this information if we choose. We are not limited to knowledge about where we live and the people in our local community, but we can have a greater understanding of different places and people who may have different perspectives. If it weren’t for social media, many social causes, protests, and movements would not have gained as much attention and momentum. #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo were movements both started on Twitter, and it rapidly reached a global audience because of social media. Many of the social justice topics that were brought up in EDUC 400 were “old news” to many of the student teachers who were from my generation. I thought that because of my heavy and constant exposure to these issues that I had a good grasp on social justice, however I think social media might have made my view very one-sided and not open to nuances or disagreement. Much of the new social justice movement online is becoming toxic; “cancel culture” is one of those realms that I have issues with. I saw this type of behaviour and dialogue inside and outside of class. If someone in class said something problematic or offensive, people were quick to condemn them. It seemed at times that my peers who I consider my friends were hurt and therefore they chose to not show kindness or give others who made mistakes the opportunity to learn and grow. This made me really upset and I was conflicted on how I should react. Should I agree with what my friends say because they are upset, or should I remain neutral which comes across as siding with the problematic behaviour? I would validate my friends feelings but I also made an effort to show kindness and friendship to people I disagreed with. I think this is the side of social justice that we as a society have forgotten about. For so many years we have been advocating for and lifting up marginalized voices as we should, but now because of this cancel culture that has evolved from online social media movements, people are quick to blame and hate someone. In my view, hate and finger pointing will not help our society become more just. If we want a more harmonious and peaceful society, I believe we need to allow people the opportunity to learn from their wrongdoings and change their opinions. It took me some time to feel comfortable in these beliefs because it is easier and sometimes more popular to be mean to someone who disagrees with you than to show kindness. As I become a professional I need to keep in mind that the values and morals I am teaching apply to me too. I must practice what I preach. If I want my students to be kind and respectful I must model the same in my own life, in and out of the classroom.

Identity Day

Because of my exposure to more left-wing ideologies and opinions online coupled with personal experiences with Catholic people, I had many troubles having an open mind when it came to Christianity and Catholicism. The social justice movement is much more critical of these religions for good reasons; they have been the dominant religion in the Western world, they have histories of racism, sexism, homophobia, and sexual abuse to minors, and were the prominent perpetrators of the residential school system in Canada. Of course we must critically examine this religious organization for their past and present discrimination, but how much blame are we to put on the ‘system’ and how much comes down to individual actions and beliefs? For myself, it was easy to lump all Catholics together and assume they all shared the same pro-life right-winged views that I do not agree with. However, this has begun to shift this semester as I have been finding more middle ground and nuance in every situation and every person. In my time observing schools in the Surrey School District one elementary school had a school wide “Identity Day”. This day gave students and teachers an opportunity to bring in an object, food, clothing, photos, or anything that represented their identity. During my observation of a music class I was writing notes down about the teacher and her interactions with her students. I was noticing how she sat among her students in a bean bag and created a relaxing environment. The students looked comfortable and seemed to respect their teacher. When they started talking about what Identity Day meant, the music teacher brought out her object - it was a statue of Mother Mary. I immediately cringed. I thought to myself “Why is this teacher bringing religion into her class? The school is working so hard on Indigenous perspectives and this religion did so much harm to so many Indigenous people.” While it is important to critically examine our colonial past, if we are to be open and respectful to all religions then we must be open to all religions, even the ones we may have personal or cultural grievances with. As I listened on to this teacher’s discussion of her statue and what it meant, I was blown away with the conversation that followed.

I was astounded at how this teacher opened up the conversation about faith. She said that she prays every night that her students are happy and safe. She acknowledged that many religions, including her own, are the source for many bad things in the world sometimes. This honesty really moved me to think about how conversations like this could shape a child’s perspective of their teacher and of their worldview. The teacher also said that she was very excited for Identity Day so she can learn about about and respect everyone’s faiths and cultures. The way she talked with these young students was extremely profound and felt so vulnerable. Everyone truly seemed equal and was free to talk about what they believed without being mocked or judged. It really made me emotional to know that this Catholic woman in a teacher’s role could have this type of conversation with kids who were Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, etc. How would this classroom, visually and emotionally, be interpreted by someone who experienced residential schools or other colonial schooling where their culture was stripped away? (Reflection 4, October 29, 2019)

Reflecting on this experience has shaken my outlook in my professional and personal life. I have met many devout Catholics who were unkind to those unlike them or had different beliefs and opinions. This made me question whether I was kind to people unlike me or who were unkind to me. Before I would answer “Of course! I am kind no matter what people identify as!” but now I know that was not always true. There was an asterisk. I realize now that based on my bias and assumptions I was expecting the teacher to not be open minded to her students religions, but in fact I was the one who was not open. This experience was surprisingly healing and transformative for me and continues to shape me as an educator and human.

What does poverty look like?

During another observation in my GO2 experience, the Vice Principal at a secondary school had us question what we thought poverty looked like. My peers and I thought that kids in poverty were probably wearing used clothing, didn’t have access to a cell phone, were isolated from their classmates, and other negative assumptions. The Vice Principal told us that many of the kids in poverty at this school will not look like what we thought they would. She said many of the students in poverty will have designer clothes, a new vape, a new iPhone, and other materialistic luxury items, but the difference between well-off kids and kids in the inner city is how they acquired those things. Were the shoes bought by their parents? Did they work for phone that only connects to wifi? Did they steal a vape in the change room? We were asked to look beyond what we saw and assumed from our interactions. This made me think of the DAE framework from Building Cultural Competency. Before I had not known what classified an inner city school, which schools were inner city, and what those looked like. By using the Describe - Analyze - Evaluate method helped me be more objective and make less assumptions on personal experiences and biases when entering these new spaces. This became evident in my GO3 as well, where it would have been easy to make assumptions about the students who were likely written off as lazy, violent, useless, or other negative titles by people in their life. As you can see in my DAE example, I never described the students with terms like those, or assumed things about their life that I could not and frankly did not need to know.

I would also like to include some field notes from my observations at various inner city schools. I wrote down about the various programs each school had and what their unique needs and issues were. I have blocked out names and personal information for privacy. My handwriting is really messy because we often had to write these facts quickly as the principal/teacher said them or while walking. Most of the programs that I heard about were completely new to me. I had no idea that the demand for these programs existed, but I am happy to hear that they are available to kids and families that need the support. Because of my experience growing up in a middle-class neighbourhood, I never had to worry about having lunch or homeless people sleeping on the playground. In my second field note I wrote down something the principal said: “Inner city as a catch-all term.” He warned us that being in an inner city school comes with biases and assumptions in itself, but we should focus on being open to the needs, welcoming kids and families as they are, and focus on how to help the best we can. These experiences exposed the privileges I had while in school and made me evaluate what other children could be going through. There’s a lot you can see through the presence of certain programs being essential to a child’s success, but there are also things you can’t see. You can’t see what a child is going through. These observations revealed my biases and helped me become more empathetic towards students and teachers alike.

References

Nam, K. (2012.). Framework: Describe-analyze-evaluate. In K. Berardo & D. K. Deardorff (Eds), Building cultural competence: Innovative activities and models. Stylus Publishing, LLC.