Marie reflects on how much she's learned

Maria with learners at Thandokhulu Secondary School

I am still not sure what career path I'd like to take in my future, so it may be difficult to explain how I expect the experiences and knowledge I gained this semester to influence my future career and life choices.  As far as my occupation goes, I do have many ideas how this class would affect my work if I decided to work towards becoming a teacher.  I would be careful to treat all of my students with respect, constantly being honest with my own thoughts and feelings to make sure I am being sensitive to students, co-workers, and the school environment at all times.  I would also improve required school curriculum to decrease American ethnocentricity and ignorance by not only adding content, but also the way in which it is presented to students.  American students should learn more about our country's past (not just the bright and shiny parts; and learn about all sides of an issue, not just the side that makes us look good and infallible) and more about other countries' histories and cultures.  As far as life choices goes, those will be unconsciously affected with everything I do, say, and think because of my new outlook on the world.  Seeing people for who they are and seeing certain issues and institutions for what they are will lead to things that I cannot even predict just yet.  I am still working on letting all of this new knowledge settle; I haven't the faintest clue what to do with all of it yet.  All I know is that this new information and the way I look at things now and question them are restless and bubbling, and will not lay dormant for long.

One of the most important things that I have examined more extensively is that institutions like race and gender are merely socially constructed, and that the media is a constant bombardment of reinforcements of these social constructions.  Our perceptions of stereotypes and individuals come from a complex and sturdy sociological foundation that has always been building and building from everything that makes up society, from individuals to government policies to mass media to Disney movies.  Another perspective-altering ongoing discussion is the idea of privilege and how certain privileges cannot be earned, only assigned at birth by luck.  This is important because then this cultivates a heightened sense of understanding and and acceptance between people; they can then acknowledge and respect the fact that someone can only play their hands of cards so well if they were dealt a bad hand in the first place.  If someone is dealt a fantastic hand, it's not because they earned it, it's because they're lucky, and they are lucky because there is only so badly you can do once you have been dealt a really good hand of cards.

Something important that I learned about myself is that I am racist, everybody is racist whether they want to be or not, and that it is not only okay to admit it, but important to admit it.  I didn't eve know that I wanted to stop being racist until I knew that I was in the first place.  Once I recognized what was going on my own head without my previous acknowledgement, I could begin to work toward being a more aware and accepting person, as well as apply this critically-thinking mindset to everything I think, experience, and witness.  It is scary, sad, and eye-opening to notice racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other discrimination so present and deeply ingrained in so many parts of society.  I've also learned that without even fully knowing it, I have a lot of false (or at least limited) knowledge of my own country, its history, and its role in our world today.  There is a lot of skewing and censoring that goes on in American education, media, and society that creates a very one-sided and biased (and sometimes just completely wrong) image about America and cultivates certain sentiments and values based on such information.  I learned how affected I am by advertising and media, how to identify how I am being affected, and have therefore been given more control over how I want to be affected by external information.  I have more of a choice about what I want to do with all of that information and who I want to be.