Although I know its almost impossible to be completely free bias I like to believe that I am very close to it. I grew up in a big city where black and his
panic was dominant. I also have lived in Narragansett, which is a small rich town where very few people were anything but white. I like to think that because I have experienced living in such opposite places my understanding for diversity is strong. The school for my service learning is much like the elementary school I attended when I was young. However it is much different than the Elementary School in Narragansett that I worked at.
I think my personal history helps me in my service learning. I think that because I went to school in a school much like the one I teach at I can relate to the students and the teachers. When they are frustrated about being under funded and no having the write supplies to learn, I understand because I have been in the situation. On the other hand because I went to high school in such an opposite place I feel like sometimes I loose track of where I am because now working at the school in Narragansett is what I am used to.
I have both advantages and disadvantage working in this classroom. The children in my classroom at mostly Black or Hispanic. Because I have gone to school and became friends with Blacks and Hispanics I somewhat understand some of their experiences but because I am not them I do not completely understand. Another disadvantage is that some of the students that I work with are multilingual. This is a disadvantage to because I am not. I feel like if I were I would be able to connect to the students on another level.
I like to think I do not stereotype people or anything of the sort but I realized that I did have some misconceptions about various cultural groups. Once I worked with the students one on one it was easy to see that what I had thought was wrong. And after getting to know my students and learning about their lives and experiences it was easy to see what was wrong about what I was thinking.
After reading Johnson and reflecting on my life I realized white privilege is real! I moved to Narragansett because my older sister did not pass the test to get into one of the better inner city high schools. Now that I’m older and look at the situation I realize that most families do not have opportunity to do such a thing. Johnson defines privilege as a social advantage that is both unearned and come to people simply because they happen to belong to a particular social category. After reading this I felt almost guilty because I realized that I do have this privilege. When I think about this and how I myself can change I think of when Johnson says “we are participating in something larger than ourselves”. I feel awful writing this. I feel like having privilege is so bad.
1 comments:
I totally get where you are coming from. Having went to a city elementary school than switch to the white country, I see things a little differently from someone who spent their whole educational lives in one particular place. I also know what you mean about feeling bad because you have white privilege. Is it far that I get one thing when someone else has to do without? However, the way I think about it is that by acknowledging the fact that we do come from privilege we are no longer part of the problem but the solution. The problem being, according to Johnson, that we as a society do not bring privilege to the forefront and act like everyone is given fair treatment. We might see it but we say nothing about it. He refers to Our House being on FIRE, meaning that white privilege is such a problem that it is causing a fire in the world that can either increase through the hatred between classes and races, or talk about it, not only in our class but with our future friends and students in an effort to help extinguish the fire and live at peace with one another in a big roomy house. LOL!
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