In this Ted Talk, the author speaks about her idea how a single story should not be used to define a person, place, or idea. Everything has many stories, and they all should be read or heard, before someone makes a judgement or stereotype of that person, place or idea. She uses her experience as a child, reading Western books. She says, "I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children.” Her perception of literature was what was represented in the books that she read, the one story. What happened from those stories was that she started to believe the people like herself, are not represented in literature. Additionally, she talks about how she as a child, stereotyped Fide, her family’s house boy, because as the author states, “All I heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.” This idea, the single story, happens all the time in education. Teacher will stereotype their students as lazy, uneducated, and impossible to get to, because of the stories that are told about them, or from the first impression they get in the class room. I have heard teacher tell me, “you can tell what kind of grade a student will get within the first 3 assignments.” Comments like that are really hard to hear, being in the business to educate all students. So judgment from the teacher onto the students does happen a lot in our education. Teachers do stereotype the students, and will only see one side, a single story of that student.
I feel it is very important, as a teacher to document your story. Just like students, a teacher will also get stereotyped by individuals. From students, from parents, and also from the community. A lot of individuals think that all teachers are lazy, mainly because they feel that teachers do not have the same fear as other workers of losing their jobs because of “tenure.” Now, I am not that there are no teachers out there that fit this description, but I do feel the majority of teacher would be disgusted that they are lumped into this stereotype. It is important to document what you do in the classroom, your story, to be able to show anyone who feels that teachers are lazy. We may only work 9 months out of the year, but if you document everything a great teacher does in a single day and compare it to a 12 month employee, I bet you would find that the 12 month employee will have a lot more down time during the day than the teacher does.
I feel it is very important, as a teacher to document your story. Just like students, a teacher will also get stereotyped by individuals. From students, from parents, and also from the community. A lot of individuals think that all teachers are lazy, mainly because they feel that teachers do not have the same fear as other workers of losing their jobs because of “tenure.” Now, I am not that there are no teachers out there that fit this description, but I do feel the majority of teacher would be disgusted that they are lumped into this stereotype. It is important to document what you do in the classroom, your story, to be able to show anyone who feels that teachers are lazy. We may only work 9 months out of the year, but if you document everything a great teacher does in a single day and compare it to a 12 month employee, I bet you would find that the 12 month employee will have a lot more down time during the day than the teacher does.