As I expand my knowledge and read more about culture, identity, privilege ,ethnicity and race , I am realizing I need to study more in order to understand the many issues that affect the education system.I am going to discuss more in detail on my understanding and thoughts about this week’s content and of course I am gonna start with the Complexity of identity.
The complexity of Identity.Before reading the Article about Complexity of identity,I had a very narrow understanding of the concept, it was just about someone’s religion and nationality and not more than that.I didn’t know that identity was affected by many factors both internal and external.From my personal experience, living in my homeland Somalia, I never had to show or as a matter of fact prove to anyone that I am a muslim cause everyone around me was a muslim.For example there was no a day I watched the news in my country thinking that they will portray a bad picture of my religion or my culture.Coming here I feel like I am constantly fighting to keep my identity and struggle to explain to the people that we are equal as human beings even if I speak a different language, dress differently, worship or have an accent when I speak english.I believe many factors that affect our identities are not permanent and they change according to different situations and places.
What is privilege ? Living in America when I hear the term privilege I picture in my mind an upper class white person who owns a home, has a decent job and does not get harassed by the police when they are driving to work or taking a walk in the park(that was my opinion before I did my homework and read ‘ Privilege 101;Quick & Dirty Guide).Now I am sure that was not educated understanding of broad term of Privilege.The article decides that privilege is the opposite of oppression and I Personally don’t agree with that statement and I believe when we misuse our privilege and prevent other people from sharing with us the benefits that come with privilege is when I can call it ‘oppression’.
Minnesota Schools struggle to with widening racial gap between teachers & students.I think it is one of the reasons that motivated me to join the field of education,I sometimes visit my brothers’s high school and the number of teachers of color I see is very small compared with the number of students of color in that specific school.I read many studies and articles that says having more teachers of color in the classroom has positive impact on student’s performance overall.I am sure they are a lot of positive things that teachers of color will bring but the questions do we have the resources and the willpower to empower the aspiring teachers to get into classroom and stay in that career for long time?
What teachers need to know about the Native American Students?.if there is someone who is very ignorant about Native American then it has to be me and this articles opened the door for me to read and understand different ways that Native American Students learn.I am sure understanding how native American students learn is also the same as understanding how every kids learn an as teachers we are supposed to develop personalized learning for every child in our classroom and pay more attention to students of color and minority so they can be successful like anybody else.
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