Our stories really do matter, and I felt how important our stories are as we did activities this morning at the SI. I felt really connected to the stories of middle children and those of us who knew we always wanted to be teachers. Those narratives of being in the middle and of teaching our dolls and neighborhood children to read and write connected us. We connected through the intersections and differences in our stories. I connected to Nicholas and Sarah, too, as we looked at teachers in popular media, teachers whose stories didn't match our own but whose stories dominant the popular imagination. I kept thinking about how difficult it is to tell our stories because the dominant stories of teachers with no lives, or teachers working alone in a waste land of other teachers, or the heroic teacher who saves students because she cares (and is the only person who does)--these stories crowd out the real stories of real teachers who every day do so much for children and have wonderful and powerful impacts on their lives. So I'm wondering now how we can tell our stories and make them public. Steve Zemelman has this great website that invites teachers to speak up and speak out: http://teachersspeakup.com
Let's all think about this site as a place where our stories and voices can be heard.
Test
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed connecting with fellow "second career" folks. It was nice realizing the commonalities. Also, I've always been intrigued with birth order and how that determines our makeup as individuals.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link to Steve Zemelman. I was thinking about the idea of the "dominant" story and how that meshes with our own personal stories. I think there are elements of our own personal stories that exist in the dominant story (which is why the dominant exists), but the problems is that those elements become the whole story--much like stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteI also felt connected to my group of only children. I felt like it was an A-Ha moment for many of us. I particularly found it interesting that first born children sometimes become English teachers. I wonder if it is because parents spend so much time trying to get the first child and the next child has to be spunky to be heard. I noticed this with my own children when the second child stuttered trying to get his words out fast enough to be heard. We as a family started to pause to let him talk and he also a prospers now. Thank you for sharing your years of wisdom.
ReplyDelete