For some reason, following 48-hours with just 7 combined hours of "sleep", I have told myself I still have the mental functioning to write this. Which of course is a lie... I don't. But I want to work at it anyway. Yes, as you read, you may begin to think, "wow, what a piece of half-ass, shitty, crap". Granted, you were warned.
There are also some invented words in this piece. Just in case you come across something you think I thought was real but really isn't. I can be creative sometimes, you know.
I am required to take a course about teaching internationally as a component to my preparation for South Africa in the spring. There are two sections to the course, one in St. Catherine's and one in Hamilton. The Hamilton section has a total of 3 students: PJ Christine (that's me!), JI Shelby (not me), and IS Pete (also not me). Mark Wickens instructs us and we essentially just eat international snacks and talk for 2-hours.
It's REALLY awesome!
Society, culture, questions/issues in (in)equality, education.... these are topics that I am REALLY interested in and excited about. And these are the topics we discuss during our class. The two hours I spend in room 10 on Wednesday evenings has restored my perception and faith in my education this year.
Last evening we talked about stories. Considering Hofstede's "Onion Concept", we talked about how individuals are comprised of many layers, some thicker others just thin, each which contains some important content to the whole of our being. Departing from an onion (actually, we thought the image looked more like a chalet...) and adopting a "story" theme, I can adapt the metaphor to take the shape of chapters.... People are living, breathing stories with many chapters.
The problem becomes, though, that as others perceive us, they tend to only know one story about us. When I go to work, my customers see one single story about me... I am a bartender serving their beer. When I go to school, my colleagues see one single story about me... I am a student. When I go to the mall people see one single story of me... I am a middle class, white, female.
One single story. None of us consists of one single story. No one person, city, or even country can be accurately understood or explained through reading or having a familiarity with an aspect of it's identity. An aspect.
Human beings and the geography we encompass are not made up of one single story. But so often we are fragmented in this way, based on sometimes small, sometimes big, but always just snippets of something that is happening to us at a single point in time. Stereotypes, fragmatized, often misinformed, snippets of our being. We watch the news and see images of war in Iran and we have a single story understanding of an entire nation. We look at a person, and based on the colour of their skin and the clothing they wear, we scribe a single story understanding of who that person is.
People are fascinating creatures. Capable of so much greatness, which some do achieve. But they... we... also contain so much short sightedness. Disturbingly, for every insightful, open-minded, thoughtful person, there is an equal (more?) number of individuals who are close-minded, unthoughtful, and ignorant.
I have a very hard time conceptualizing how that is even possible. How, in the year 2012 (TWELVE!) society continues to perpetuate an "us - them" mentality. And I do not claim to exceptionalize myself from the phenomenon... at times I can be right in there with the best of them. And I absolutely identify the problematicity all that prescribes. I think that individual attitudes are what they are.... It can be very difficult to change the minds of some people, for better OR for worse, however I do believe it is possible. It's when individual mindsets, content on knowing a single story about a person or location, combine to form a collective. A misinformed, ignorant, close-minded collective is a scary thing.
Yes, we are a pluralistic society IF we maintain a technical definition of pluralism which looks at the physical makeup and multitudinous variety of cultures of the people who live here. But I think the concept of pluralism is deeper than that.
We watched a TED Talks talk (triple t's) by a profoundly insightful woman named Chimamanda Adichie. A Nigerian woman, writer, and prolific speaker, she shares the experiences with single storyism she has encountered surrounding her African identity. Adichie's sentiments are very clear.... Knowing a single story closes one's growth of knowledge and attainment of true culturalization and global citizenship. To know several stories about a person or place can only lead to a certain paradise among us. A paradise because everyone just might be understood a little bit better. A paradise perhaps also because our differences, the unique things that come to define and distinguish us from others, would be a point of learning for those people we meet.
There is a line in the song "Ants Marching" by the Dave Matthews Band that goes like this:
"We look at each other wondering what the other is thinking. But we never say a thing, and these crimes between us grow deeper"
It isn't hard to be ignorant. You don't ask questions , you don't challenge yourself, you don't go out of your way to learn things, you are content with mediocrity, and are most comfortable with not having to work very hard. To me, that is an unfortunate state of living. Because what I think is that knowing things, challenging yourself, asking questions, talking to people, striving for excellence, and working hard provides such a rich, engaging, and fulfilling existence.
And hearing the multiple stories which have been written so far and fill the pages of our lives already is one brilliant starting point. In doing so we validate the existence of so many groups of people on Earth, breaking down the barriers of stereotypes which persist and continue to "inform" the discussions so many have around global communities. Knowledge is power and, I also believe, a gift. Knowing things gives us a significant amount of power.... leverage for understanding life. Knowledge cultures us. Knowledge empowers us. And for this reason, we must use knowledge very wisely... share what we know with others to teach them, too, and provide a counter thought to some who might demonstrate more narrow thinking.
I think the first step in the direction of knowing multiple stories is to start listening to those willing to share.
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