Monday, September 6, 2010
The single story explains the lives of different types of ethnicities in the world. It shows the lives of people as one thing and that is what they will become because that is what we were told Adichie uses as an example for Mexicans. Americans look at foreigners and believe they have no idea how to speak english or even live like an American because they are different. The best way to resolve the textbook is to produce one book that is told by people that have lived the past because they know what occurred, but is most likely impossible because most people who are in our history books these days are deceased. Anything put into the books should be written from the ones who lived the lives of their own ethnicity. Adichie explains how stories matter but dispossess and used to empower people along with humanize. They also break dignity of people but even repair them because of the different sides of stories told. Minority voices should be told but have 2 sides to it to explain its purpose. People can teach one simple thing in many different ways if they can invent a different way. The way of teaching gives the teacher their thought of what they believe should be taught over what shouldn't be taught, so they choose what they want to teach. Hitler may not have been a hero to many people but there may have been people who thought he was a hero and those are the people who are most likely left out because they are the minority. The reason single stories are difficult is because one story could be told and many people will believe it cause that is what they were shown leaving the rest of the told stories left out such as the other sides of the lives of people.
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Your idea to rewrite the history books sounds good, but is very difficult because we do not have one person who is living today that had witnessed the writing of the American Independence or other important events in United States history. We do not have a way to determine what certain events that are taught to us in the books is one hundred percent true. We can only learn what is written in teh books and trust that we are learing what exactly happend at that moment in history. I do like the idea of every ethnicity writting their own history books but they have the capability to put something completley false about another ethnicity or another race of people. Meaning that one race would learn about an event such as a war or something, and be taught they were victorious and the other side lost, but the other race might learn that they wone. A techer could not teach whatever they want because they have a curriculum to stick to for the kids standardized tests.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that i really thought about after reading this post was when you said, "Anything put into the books should be written from the ones who lived the lives of their own ethnicity." I'm not sure if this would work because i'm sure the person writing it would be a little biased against other ethnicities during the course of the book. Also I think what you said about teachers teaching what they think is right is extremely accurate. Some teachers teach what they think is right and that isn't always best for the students. But then again there isn't really a way to stop this; there are too many teachers that teach this way to enforce, plus i don't believe that there is an accurate way to enforce all of those teachers. Yes, they have to teach the kids whatever is on the state tests, but how they teach it and much they care about the subject is completely up to the teacher.
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