When I was a student in elementary school in grade eight the student demographics were about 70% White and 30% non-White. However those numbers were constantly changing as from about grade 6-8 there seemed to be new students starting at my school every week. At the same time, I did not see any sort of conflict or disagreement between students about racial issues or not knowing English. One of the goals for anti bias education is that children will feel positive but not superior about their racial identity and I think this goal was achieved at my elementary school. While my high school was also very culturally and racially diverse, unlike elementary school we read novels about people with varying cultural and racial backgrounds. This allowed us to gain better understandings of our classmates while also allowing us to find and build connections between each other's past. Since I would like to become an elementary school teacher, I have spent a good amount of time volunteering at my two local elementary schools Deshaye Catholic and St Kateri the last two years. I got the chance to work with students from many different countries each with their own unique culture and traditions. Going to, and working at schools that was very culturally and racially diverse has really helped me to start seeing people for who they are and not what they look like. I would say that the majority of my school was from a single story perspective until teachers encouraged us by challenging us to start using our ability to think critically. These teachers began to encourage us to read what was being implied by what was written compared to what was being left out and the words that were on the page A person might not know that they are being taught “single stories” because they are hard to identify unless a person identifies and points them out.
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