Reading The World

My upbringing in a rural Saskatchewan community truthfully limited the ways in which I “read the world.” Throughout my schooling there was very little diversity in the classroom, and this is something that I am still working on understanding in classrooms today. I do not remember a time in my schooling where I had a teacher who was not white, and I think that has shaped how I view the world in many ways. The stories that we read and completed our research projects on were mostly those with white characters struggling with issues that we could understand in our society. I am actively trying to overcome the biases and lenses that I have formed throughout my childhood in such classrooms. I believe that one of the biggest and most important ways to overcome these biases, is to continue to educate ourselves. Our society is going to continue to change, and we as teachers must change along with it, as our classrooms become more and more diverse.

As mentioned earlier, many of the stories that I remember from my childhood were those with white characters. However, one book that I will always remember reading is “The Bite of the Mango” by Mariatu Kamara. I believe that this story was used as a tool to bring culture into the classroom. Although doing so with this particular book may not have been the best way of incorporating culture, especially to children who have not had much experience beforehand. I do understand that this is a true story that many of us could have never understood, but there are many other ways to introduce culture in the classroom without only showing the worst of the worst.