EDAD 516 is intended for students in the Educational Leadership program who are pursuing a State of Washington Residency Principal or Program Administrator certificate. This course examines the role of the principal as a learning-focused leader who has the knowledge, skills, and cultural competence to ensure the learning, achievement, and success of each student.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
The Danger of a Single Story | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | TED Talks
As school starts, I think about school as a rite of passage. We are supposed to be teaching our students how to be successful. While I don’t necessarily agree with our speaker’s way of expressing her message, I understand what she is getting at. However, like our students and her message, there is more than one story to be told here. As educators we must consider how to engage our students with what they know and can relate to. However, our student’s success, in our nation, is not based (nor valued) on their understanding of other cultures. It is based on their understanding of how to be successful in our nation, economically. An understanding that is at risk should we stray too far from our story. When I stop and think about what Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie is really saying the only conclusion I can reach is that she wants multiple perspectives, what she calls stories. I am all for this but until our system values these things then the focus will not be on them. Our system is built on capitalism and competition. If you want other stories and want to empower others then our system tells you to wait until you have paid your dues, much like Nigeria has paid their dues. However, ironically enough we are paying their dues for them. In Fiscal Year 2014, USAID spent $350.5 million dollars in Nigeria. Of that $294.3 million went to health compared to $9.7 million that went to education (USAID). The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Nigeria was worth 568.51 billion US dollars in 2014 (World Bank). So let’s get this straight, a country worth over five hundred billion dollars is still receiving USAID. There has got to be a story here…. She is telling us that we have to be wary about a single story. Yet she has one story, that she knew, and American media portrays. One story about where she is from. However, would she be in a position to offer this story to us if we did not invest in Nigeria for the past sixty-four years? Is it not ironic that because we invested in them that she now has the ability to tell us that there are more stories? Does the U.S. not have more than one story? We get blamed, ridiculed, and other nations paint us as cruel, yet people continue to flock here and leave their corrupt systems, perhaps leading to a (more) corrupt system here? We have a system that allows the oldest, wealthiest generation to be in positions of power. They function on the ideas of when they were youth what they wished for. They govern under a system that doesn’t have a youth voice. Call it a forgotten story, perhaps a single story. The single story of a government of those who, now older, are making decisions for our future based on their past and not our current needs. Some call this the beauty of our system. As educators we are constantly asked to build relationships and relate to students. I am all for encouraging them to tell their story. However, once again, we do not have a system that encourages this. Our education agenda has only recently been focused on cultural competence and understanding. One could make the argument that it is barely focused on keeping the American cultural system in place, outside of greed and economics. We charge large amounts of money to immigrants to become citizens yet our graduating high school students couldn’t pass the same citizenship tests. Until we value educating our youth on our political system we risk continuing to spend our money and invest our time in places like Nigeria, which “is currently the United States' most important trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa, largely due to the large volume of petroleum imports from Nigeria which satisfy 8 percent of U.S. crude oil import requirements (USAID).” How’s that for another story?
Can not wait to share this with our staff at Brouillet. Wow.
ReplyDeleteAs school starts, I think about school as a rite of passage. We are supposed to be teaching our students how to be successful. While I don’t necessarily agree with our speaker’s way of expressing her message, I understand what she is getting at. However, like our students and her message, there is more than one story to be told here. As educators we must consider how to engage our students with what they know and can relate to. However, our student’s success, in our nation, is not based (nor valued) on their understanding of other cultures. It is based on their understanding of how to be successful in our nation, economically. An understanding that is at risk should we stray too far from our story.
ReplyDeleteWhen I stop and think about what Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie is really saying the only conclusion I can reach is that she wants multiple perspectives, what she calls stories. I am all for this but until our system values these things then the focus will not be on them. Our system is built on capitalism and competition. If you want other stories and want to empower others then our system tells you to wait until you have paid your dues, much like Nigeria has paid their dues. However, ironically enough we are paying their dues for them. In Fiscal Year 2014, USAID spent $350.5 million dollars in Nigeria. Of that $294.3 million went to health compared to $9.7 million that went to education (USAID). The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Nigeria was worth 568.51 billion US dollars in 2014 (World Bank). So let’s get this straight, a country worth over five hundred billion dollars is still receiving USAID. There has got to be a story here….
She is telling us that we have to be wary about a single story. Yet she has one story, that she knew, and American media portrays. One story about where she is from. However, would she be in a position to offer this story to us if we did not invest in Nigeria for the past sixty-four years? Is it not ironic that because we invested in them that she now has the ability to tell us that there are more stories? Does the U.S. not have more than one story? We get blamed, ridiculed, and other nations paint us as cruel, yet people continue to flock here and leave their corrupt systems, perhaps leading to a (more) corrupt system here? We have a system that allows the oldest, wealthiest generation to be in positions of power. They function on the ideas of when they were youth what they wished for. They govern under a system that doesn’t have a youth voice. Call it a forgotten story, perhaps a single story. The single story of a government of those who, now older, are making decisions for our future based on their past and not our current needs. Some call this the beauty of our system.
As educators we are constantly asked to build relationships and relate to students. I am all for encouraging them to tell their story. However, once again, we do not have a system that encourages this. Our education agenda has only recently been focused on cultural competence and understanding. One could make the argument that it is barely focused on keeping the American cultural system in place, outside of greed and economics. We charge large amounts of money to immigrants to become citizens yet our graduating high school students couldn’t pass the same citizenship tests. Until we value educating our youth on our political system we risk continuing to spend our money and invest our time in places like Nigeria, which “is currently the United States' most important trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa, largely due to the large volume of petroleum imports from Nigeria which satisfy 8 percent of U.S. crude oil import requirements (USAID).”
How’s that for another story?