Do I have the full picture? I think in the schooling system, it is set up so the students, and staff, don't ever get the full picture. Since taking some of the education based courses, I have realized how messed up and bias the education system can be.
In the social studies class I am taking right now, I learned how majority of schools only teach their students one side of the story. History is not only one side, it has many sides and perspectives of all the parties involved. When the students only learn one side of a story it can create ideas in their mind about certain topics that might not fully be true. Textbooks created for the classroom don't help this idea of one sided learning, they write the text in a certain perspective and don't share all sides. For example, when Christopher Columbus is talked about in school, they are taught that he just found new land and colonized there. The students are not taught that he caused a genocide of the Indians who lived there before he came. The Indians were treated so poorly by Columbus and his men that many of them took their own lives to escape them, if they were not killed by his people before.
As teachers it is our responsibility to do the best we can to educate our students on the full picture. Whether it be bringing in outside resources or people to give them all perspectives on a topic, or teaching them our own knowledge, it is important that they get all sides to a story and not just one. Some teachers are restricted on the content they are able to teach, but we have to do the best we can to give our students the best content.
Hi Caroline! I agree that our education system does not teach us the full picture, and this has become more apparent with what we're learning in our college classes. In high school when I was taking history, I never thought about the other sides of the stories we were hearing. Growing up i heard the same historical terms, figures, and events being taught, but I didn't blink an eye. Thinking about that now blows my mind because I was so confident in my education that I did not think critically or try to find any other perspective. Going into college and hearing these moments in history that I never heard about shocked me and made me question all the historical knowledge I gained throughout my education. Because of this developing awareness, I know that I want to teach my students about the parts of history that aren't shown or discussed. Even though I'm prepared to use various resources, people, and artifacts to show different sides to the story, one thing I keep asking is how are we supposed to teach these perspectives when we are limited in what we're allowed to say and teach?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that before coming to college I didn't question what I was learning or look for other perspectives on the topic. As future teachers it is our job to teach our students all sides of the story to the best of our ability!
Delete