Where Do I Fit In? What Can I Do About It?

The overwhelming theme in Literacy with an Attitude is ‘where do I fit in and what can I do about it’. I see the book as a window into a world where a white, middle class woman, living in the suburbs of Toronto can peer into the communities only minutes away from her home. The book gave me an opportunity to really understand the deeper issues facing some of the students I teach and how I can assist them on their journey to success.

I am going to look at the subtle and sometimes not so subtle dance between teachers and students as they both struggle to do their best at their respective jobs. I have come to the conclusion that people are trying their best in their daily life, school or career by dealing with the situation they have at hand. Many teachers are well intentioned, however still come to school with biases. Students come to school, not only dealing with homework but with outside stresses and their biases. I believe that teachers have to be the ones to extend the olive branch to invite our students to be critical learners.

At one school I taught at, in one of Toronto’s 16 ‘At Risk’ neighbourhoods, many of the teachers were either European immigrants or first-generation Canadians. Many of us came to work/school every day with the “My grandparents made it; why can’t they” (page 50). I have to admit, the thought crossed my mind as well. Again, I was looking at the situation as a first-generation Canadian. My grandparents and parents did struggle and were discriminated against, however my grandparents immigrated to Canada as they always say, “for a better life”.

If you look at the Italian community in Toronto and the GTA, we have made accommodations and some people have assimilated. When I worked as a cashier, one of the requirements was to be able to speak Italian. One of my grandparents lived in Canada for over 50 years and only could speak a few words in English. She however, made sure all of her children did well in school and stressed the importance to her grandchildren. We were told to become teachers, doctors and lawyers. Funnily enough it did happen, except for the doctor. Most European immigrants had the option to return to their homeland if they did not like the conditions in their new chosen country. In Canada for Italians, there was a sense of freedom and choice.

For the people that Finn calls, involuntary minorities, they, “experience discrimination as permanent. They have no homeland to return to” (page 42). This is the major difference in the immigration stories that the teachers I worked with. They did not seem to know or were unaware of this notion. Students see themselves as ‘members of an oppressed group’ and “there are things I reject because I associate them with my oppressors and to do them is to betray my people” (page 42). As teachers we need to know where our students are coming from, what kind of discourses they have before coming to school each day and help our students see where they fit in the world and what they can do about it.

It is really unfortunate that I did not have the opportunity to read this book 12 years earlier. I truly believe what I know now would have helped me connect better with my students. At times, I am sure I was just like one of the Chicago teachers, ‘hard-bitten’. I am sorry to say, I was not the only one. The teachers at my school, worked really hard, we did not give up on the kids and we were exhausted at the end of the day. When we went to workshops on new techniques, we would wonder ‘who was the resource teacher, who had been out of the classroom for 10 years, who created this new method of teaching’. At the back of our minds, we doubted these new approaches to teaching would work in our classrooms. Maybe they would work in the fancy areas of Toronto, but not here.

At times, I guess I was just ‘lightly-bitten’, I never thought I knew more than the resource teachers and what they were telling me so I would attempt their new fangled techniques and ideas. Dare I say, I was pleasantly surprised and embarrassed to see that my students could handle the task at hand. It was I who doubted them and did not believe they could do it. I try to look at the positive in this situation; I did try the ideas with my students. Regrettably, there were some teachers, who felt, ‘why even bother, it won’t work anyway.

Many teachers, I was certainly one, in times of stress used sarcasm as a strategy for disarming students and revealing who was more powerful. It is not one of my proudest moments as a teacher but I can definitely relate to the teachers of the lads. Sarcasm by teachers only perpetuates the idea that students are continually oppressed. Why would students want to come to our side or participate in secondary discourse? We are now rooting ourselves deeper as ‘us and them’. Again, teachers need to be the ones to meet our students where they are at and help to build them up to where both of us would like to see them in our world – successful member of our society.

The reason why I am in Guidance today is because I realized, thanks again to my experience at the high needs school, was that my students needed the social skills and strategies in order to play the game and be successful in life. So many time we are told to have the students work with a partner or in small groups and we expect them to have conflict resolution skills as well as complete the task assigned. Many of my colleagues would rather have their students work individually because, “they do not know how to work in groups”. Since when is it not our job to teach the skills required in order to complete the task? Yes, it is easier to jump right into group work if the students already have the skills. It does not mean we should just not give the students the opportunity to work in groups. We as teachers need to teach our students the skills that will help them with their success in their current and future life.

Countless times teachers feel the stress of completing the curriculum before the end of the year and sadly see our students as empty vessels to be filled with as much knowledge as we can before the end of June. So much for student engagement, there is not enough time! If we would only think about our own lives, we are most engaged and learning when we can connect with it and it actually means something to us.

I think if my colleagues and I worked on these concepts we would be on the right track to assisting our students being critical thinkers and not oppressed anymore.

Some of our students make a point of “embracing ideas that are rejected by oppressors as an act of freedom and defiance” (page 42). I am a firm believer of if we believe it we become it. This principle can be used in both a positive and negative way. If you consistently believe you are oppressed, you are certainly going to feel and be oppressed. The philosophy of Power of Now and A New Earth, Eckhert Tolle, believes we all have terrible things that happen to us. We can not change the incidents that have happened to us in the past. If we choose to focus on what has happened, we are not ‘present to the present’. A quote I refer to often from Tolle,

“Action may be required to change the situation or remove yourself from it. If there is nothing you can do, face what it is and say, ‘Well right now, this is how it is. I can either accept it or make myself miserable.’ The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation” (page 96).

Maybe this is another strategy teachers need to employ to assist our students to find where they fit in the world and what they can do about it. It seems teachers are the catalyst to student empowerment and critical literacy.