My schooling has shaped how I “read the world” in many ways. In school, I was asked to read books by mostly white male authors and rarely anything else. I was taught the stereotypical idea that if there is a person of colour, they are probably poor or ‘the help.’ Going into the classroom I will go in with the bias that these books I grew up reading are the ones I should teach in my classroom because they are good. This is not necessarily true and in order to work against this bias, I will need to work really hard in trying to bring in diverse readings. Diverse reading is very important because I will have diverse students who deserve to see themselves represented in the books they are asked to read. The lenses I bring into the classroom are that of a white settler. I think about the importance of parliament and Canada’s history. Initially, I often glaze over the indigenous population and think of the stereotypical stuff relating to them. Already I am working on thinking deeper and gaining a different perspective. Going into the classroom I will have the lens of a settler and I will have to unlearn my initial thoughts such as what I think defines Canada. I will have to reshape my lens and do my best to work against my biases to provide the best education to the students possible.
The “single stories” presented in my school were often those by white males. The stories we read had main characters that were often white and if there was a person of colour, they often did not have a major role. The times that the story did contain a main person of colour they were often presented as poor or struggling. My school taught me that there were only certain stories worth learning and those were the ones often written by white males. Even when we were asked to read stories by Canadian authors none were written by Indigenous authors. This tells us as students who is important and who is not even if that’s not true. The majority of students in my school were white and the single stories being presented said that the white stories mattered. As a teacher, it is my job to break this pattern and present a diversity of readings so everyone feels like their story matters because they do.
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