A fresh perspective. (Prompt 4)

This being my freshman year of college I am fresh out of the Barrington school system. Growing up in a completely white upper middle class environment like Barrington there are some personal characteristics that I developed that I am not proud of. These include different misconceptions about groups that I had not a lot of experience with. For example before moving to RIC I had very little interaction with other cultures and because of that held some hesitancy when dealing with them. I would in no way have considered myself prejudice but before my experiences this year I was certainly biased toward what I know.

This initially played a part in my tutoring. On my first day though trying to keep an open mind I found myself filled with all these preconceived notions about how the class would be. I thought they would difficult to manage and noisy and disrespectful, but boy was I proven wrong. After only a few hours with the kids I found them to be for the most part very polite and good natured children who despite growing up with disadvantages I never had to face were developing into very fine individuals. I couldn’t have been more wrong with my biases and I learned from these kids to always keep an open mind and never jump to conclusions. This is a lesson that as I teacher I will hold with me for the entirety of my career.

This experience to me relates to Johnson’s main points in his articles, “My house is on fire” and “Who , me?”. What these articles talked about were privilege and oppression and how they play out in society today. One main point was that those raised in privilege perpetuate the cycle of privilege and oppression because they don’t know any better and how this can only be solved through individual’s efforts and experiences. I feel because of my own experiences with privilege and my biases being thrown out the window first hand I am on my way to developing a more comprehensive teaching mentality and attitude.