On eduction and ways of learning

I arrived in Canada 10 years ago. I was 14 years old at the time and I did not speak French and my English was not at its best. The moment I arrived here was the moment my perspective on some key concepts of this class such as education, learning, knowledge, race, inclusiveness, exclusiveness, neurotypicality and, by extension myself, changed completely.

I entered the Canadian educational system in what is called classe d’accueil, which are separated classes that focus exclusively on teaching French to immigrants in order to speed up their acquisition of the language. Many of us had to learn the language from scratch. Can you imagine yourself as a teenager/adult learning the numbers, the week’s days and the verbs instead of how to write an essay/working? It might not sound hard but let me tell you that it does affect us in terms of how we view ourselves and how we measure our intelligence. We pass from having the necessary tools to communicate and being part of our society to a frustrating lack of knowledge that affects every aspect of our new life. Indeed, our intelligence is no longer measure our knowledge but rather through our ability to express ourselves correctly/in a neurotypical way in this new language. My accent, my hesitation, and my silences reduce my credibility as an intelligent person. We live this every day of our lives in small gestures from others. It took me 2 years to reach a level deemed acceptable to be part of classes with French-speaking students and by the time I integrated those classes, I was painfully aware of this. I hardly spoke during class, since my appearance was enough to set me apart from others, which meant that I had to come up with new forms of learning that did not evolve speaking. As a consequence, I came up with what I call the “trial and error method of learning” which is quite self-explanatory:

1.      I receive an assignment

2.      I do what I think it is asked from me

3.      I submit it

4.     I get my grade back (which often is not very good)

5.     I analyze my assignment

6.     I finally completely understand what the assignment was

7.     I do better next time…

8.     Repeat

So, a school year for me is always something like this:

Start of the semester = 0 level of knowledge L = bad grades

                                        End of the semester = some knowledge acquired  J = good grades      

 So, when we talk about the educational system, race, whiteness, blackness, neurotypicality, etc. in class, I often find myself thinking about all this. My perception of myself was obviously shaped by this experience… I experienced what a neurotypical society means… I feel relieved because we have to listen to each other experiences, thoughts, etc.  and reflect on them …because we are talking about this…

Furthermore, it happened to me again while I was reading Denise’s essay: I measured my capacity to fully understand the text in front of me, and by extension, my intelligence, through my level of the English language, as a neurotypical person would do. I guess it has become an automatism. I had a hard time reading it mainly because I felt I could not grasp the deeper meaning of her words. So, I came to class last week thinking how great Denise must be because her phrases were so long! She must be really smart! How can I reach such a level of intelligence? Then, I saw and listened to Denise. She had an accent, she hesitated and reformulated her comments, she kept silent at times in order to put some order in her thoughts, she articulated and gestured in order to share her knowledge. It was a totally different experience than reading her text. Her words were alive and everything made more sense. It was a liberating moment for me to see such particularities (accent, hesitation, silence) in someone as Denise, because what I saw was not only a smart woman, but a remarkable human being and a thought crossed my mind: "you better keep up learning, growing, listening, reflecting and fighting for change as she does because you still have a long way to go."

What an inspiration!!!

Mariana