Avoiding the single story

One advantage of having really smart friends like K is that when they go off and spend four weeks at, say, the NYU Summer Intensive in Global Affairs, they pass along all sorts of fascinating information. And, like much info these days, it doesn't exist in isolation, but rather links up with other cool tidbits, so that my brain starts leaping all over the place without ever going off-topic. Like parallel tracks (in keeping with the train theme) that intersect up and down the line, criss-crossing through politics, economics, education, technology, history, literature--anything that lives under the messy, vibrant umbrella of human experience in the early 21st century.

Oh, is that all? Don't worry. This post isn't about all of that. But it is about a biggie. Stick with me here, and don't let the next sentence or the use of the word "thereto" stop you...

This post is about the best frame I have ever heard for conversations that fit under the heading: marginalized peoples and the response of power/privilege thereto. So, things like stereotyping, colonization and legacy, economic justice, any "ism" you can think of, affirmative action, the concept of charity, internal vs. external development models, etc. This amazing frame comes from a TED talk given by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie. K, bless her, recommended it to me, and now I pass it on to you. It can be found at http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

If you haven't seen it and would like to change your life in 18 minutes, go ahead and click, then come on back to the post. If you don't have 18 minutes to change your life, close this blog, put down your computer and take a serious look at your priorities, then come back and watch the TED talk.

What did you think? Amazing, right?!

Adichie's concept of the single story isn't revolutionary in and of itself. Plenty of people have said as much before, mostly in the academic journal articles I read in college sociology classes. But like most brilliant ideas that blow off the top of our heads, Adichie's frame rounds up complicated and disparate strands of a highly charged argument and weaves them together in straightforward brilliance that anyone can understand and (more importantly) explain to anyone else. Genius! The practical implications boggle the mind.

For example, the next time someone says, "Well, I know this is a total stereotype, but..." You can say, "I hear you, but it seems you have a single story view of this issue. Let me suggest another part of the story." (I personally would use the American Psycho example Adichie used. Brilliant!) Or, if you are struggling with assumptions, internal conflicts and knee-jerk reactions, as all of us do, you can take a deep breath, give yourself a mental pat of encouragement and go off in search of more than one story about the person, group or situation in question. Because you know those stories are out there, thanks to Adichie's reminder.

In fact, I did this just last night when I was deciding whether to friend on Facebook two of my new colleagues who I'm pretty sure are fundamentalist Christians. (One of them is even in the Campus Crusade for Christ network! Gasp! Eeek! Jerking knee!) My little homo heart fluttered in fear their judgment and/or rejection (I have to work with these people...), but in the end, I took the plunge. It's the least I can do to have faith that they are more than the single story I have about Christian conservatives, just as I hope with equal fervor that they grow to see me in a similar multifaceted light.

It also got me thinking about this past week at the Summit and urban education in general. (Since I can't seem to write about anything else these days...next post will be frivolous, I promise!) There are lots of single stories swirling around about urban ed, even among teachers, and the Summit did a lot to challenge them. Several presenters railed against the single story of low-income parents as universally unable to care of their children "properly." There was repeated and vocal opposition to the single story that students of color are somehow deficient and just waiting to be "enlightened" by well-meaning middle class, mostly white teachers. The keynote speaker, Gloria Ladson-Billings continued her campaign against the single story of the "achievement gap," calling it instead the "achievement debt" and reminding us all of what we owe the descendants of those who saved the Union's bacon in the Civil War and helped build the nation we have today. The whole organization, in fact, was founded to debunk the single story that low-income urban students cannot be educated, cannot achieve at the level of their more privileged peers and cannot succeed in college.

But there are other single stories that have yet to be tackled. The thing about single stories is that they should always set off alarm bells. If one is out there, buzzing around unquestioned, then that's a pretty good indication to start questioning it.

For example, at the Summit, there were funders and board members who had a single story about the "deserving" kids who benefit from their financial largesse without doing much thinking about what "deserving" means in the current educational climate. (I challenge you to find an American child who is "undeserving." I mean, really?) Then, there is the classic single story of any movement, and ours is no different. It goes something like this: if all urban students could just go to OUR schools, everything would be OK. Well, yeah. No. We have wonderful schools full of wonderful teachers and wonderful students. We are, I totally non-objectively say, still one of the hottest things moving in education today. But even I know that some kids need different things, even (especially) urban kids and one size should never be required to fit all.

Perhaps the biggest, baddest single story that needs to be stood on its head is the one about the evilness of teachers unions, as if we exist in some sort of historical vacuum where advocating for teachers as professionals never needed to happen. As a member of my charter organization, it is total heresy for me to even bring this up, but it's a single story, so it needs to be questioned. Just because teachers unions need to change with the times, especially in guaranteeing jobs to incompetent members, doesn't mean they are sinkholes of anti-progress, laziness and everything bad about public education. In fact, I would argue that teachers aligning themselves in opposition to other teachers as a group (i.e.: charters vs. teachers unions) will hurt us all in the long run. We should not seek to metaphorically devour one another. It just can't be good--not when, at the end of the day, we are all in the business of educating kids. Moreover, this single story is keeping other stories about education from seeing the light of day, namely state/national funding practices, community responsibility toward education and lackluster or inauthentic content standards, just to name a few. This profession is too complex--and too much is at stake--for single stories about anything, even the bugaboo of the moment.

In closing...whew. Let's go back to Chimamanda Adichie. Isn't she the bomb?! Isn't her frame of the single story going to change your life? It's clear, easy to understand and doesn't use words like "dominant paradigm" or "hegemony." Not even once.

Yet it's a perfect way to subvert both. Let's hear it for more than one story!