After watching the TED Talks "The Danger of a Single Story" a talk given by Chimamanda Adichie I was inspired to seek out culturally diverse experiences and to learn more about ways I can incorporate diverse perspectives into my lessons. Adichie speaks about the consequences of having narrow perspectives about other people, cultures and societies. It is important to recognize that it is human nature to want to categorize ideas and people in simple terms and groups. Adiche points out that media coverage provides people with a single story and often we are robbed of reality as often times stories are not false but incomplete. This is something I take into consideration in my classroom as I try to present varying perspectives on the texts we study. In my ERWC 12 grade classroom for example, I presented multiple perspectives on the topic of racial profiling for students to use critical thinking skills and consider both sides of an issue. I think this is a real life skill that is essential for them to learn. As Adiche mentioned in her talk "show a people as one thing and that is what they become in your mind," and it is essential that students understand the way the media influences their perspectives. This will minimize the chances that students buy into a single story in relation to many things in their lives like literatures, academic studies and the media. It is not only important to see stories from diverse perspectives but to also appreciate diversity. In the book "Show your work!" Austin Kleon shares ten ways to share creativity and to get discovered. Kleon's first advice is not to be scared to be an amateur. I feel that this applies to everyone but especially our students. Many reasons why students hold back on learning new things is the fear of doing something wrong. I believe that taking on new challenges and to submit oneself through the process of struggling for the sake of improving of learning is admirable. It's also important to share the process of learning and social media is an easy tool for sharing progress and new ideas. I like the idea of sharing the progress of projects because if we focus on the final product we may wait too long to share our work. For example, I have a friend who is in the process of creating a music album but he has been working on his music for about two years. He does not feel ready to share the individual tracks that are ready because he is not sure of how the songs will all come together. I think that art is never completely finished. There is always room for improvement that is why it's important to share our work in order for others to provide us with feedback. I don't think that we can always plan how exactly a new idea with develop and sometimes we need to enjoy the process and allow the process to take its own route. Kleon next suggestion is that we need to share something everyday. I would agree with his statement that a lot of what's shared online is not very useful but we don't always know what is. That's why it's important to share and hopefully it can be useful to someone or at the least it can inspire creativity in others. It's not only important to share our work but also our inspirations. We are all inspired by things that others might consider useless. It also allows others to see who you are. Another factor that allows people to learn about one's interests is the art of telling stories. Sharing work and ideas on social media become more real and authentic when we share how they are part of a bigger picture and if we share the process of their development. This ties in with teaching the skills that we know to others. Information is valuable and sharing our knowledge does not take from our individualism because people will always take ideas and make them unique to themselves. It's important to invest in one's own ideas if possible and to keep in contact with people who share similar interests. Technology moves so fast that it is easy to lose contact with people who one could potentially collaborate with in a future project or idea. Technology can sometimes be overwhelming because of the vast amount of information but it is worth sticking around to see how new development can be used to enhance one's creativity in all aspects of life.
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AuthorCristina Perez Archives
May 2016
CategoriesArchives
May 2016
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