I grew up happily spent my childhood believing that the world was just and fair. I trusted that the adults around me were making decisions in everyone's best interest. It wasn’t until later that I discovered that not all people were as lucky as me. And that it wasn’t just lucky to live in a country where running water and having food on the table every day was normal, lucky that my parents have jobs, that I got to participate in any extracurricular activity I wanted: band, volleyball, piano, swimming...ect, that my university education is paid for by my parents, or that I even get to go to university at all. Because I’m privileged and have had an overall good experience in the school system, it's easy to forget or to ignore the fact that not everyone is benefitting from this system. As a student, I never thought about how the material I learnt could be oppressing other cultures. Stories such as The Outsider’s, The Lamp at Noon and even The Hunger Games were all read during my highschool english classes. I never thought about it at the time, but those stories were taking up places that could have represented a different perspective. There’s so much representation of colonial views and lifestyle, but very little of anything outside of that. Although there’s nothing wrong with any using any of those stories/books in class, perhaps not all the materials used should be showing the same perspective.
It doesn’t come naturally to me to question things such as the material I was taught or even what’s in the curriculum. Because I’m one of the people benefitting from the current system I have to be taught and have to remind myself to ask if this is good for everyone. As teachers, we should introduce new material in the classroom and always look at our lesson plans to make sure that we’re achieving the goals we want.
The single stories I was taught in school were often european perspectives. Europeans immigrating to Canada was told from a settler point of view and we only briefly talked about what the aborigonal lifestyle was like before the settlers came. To this day, a single story about reserves and Indigenous communities is being told, even if it’s not always in school. I was taught that they’re dangerous, full of drunks and poverty ridden. Although there may be some drunks, and some poverty, that’s not the only qualities of Indigenous communities. I also often hear the single story that Africa is poor, people are sick, starving and suffering there, are oppressed, never of any positive stories. I heard of the history of oppressions, and slavery all the way up to the 21st century dictators, and ebola outbreaks. To stop being defined by a single story we need to reflect on ourselves and see that we are more than one thing, and also realize that about every single other person in the world. We are all individuals and should all appreciate each other and our respective cultures.