The Danger of the Single Story

After viewing the video of Chimamanda Adichie, I can only agree with her story.  As an American you start to listen to many stories that you come to believe are true but I also recognize that as an immigrant and minority you understand that many of those "single stories," are not necessarily true.  My first semester at Rhode Island College sitting in my first education class the professor asked a question about Central Falls; a female student raised her hand and started to talk about all the wrong things she had heard were wrong with Central Falls from the news.  Having graduated from that school, I knew that almost all she had heard was not true.  After all, I had graduated from there, I was sitting in the same room as her, wanting to become an educator and knew that I wasn't a criminal.  Just because we were considered poor, didn't not mean that we couldn't aspire to bigger things.  I was so infuriated but also determined to change that misinterpretation.  Now as I stand in front of my classroom and other minority classrooms in Central Falls and in Providence, I realize that this is real.  The students in those classroom only hear of a single story....one of shame, guilt and failure.  Test scores ultimately say the kind of people they are...a low performing community.  It is like a grim-reaper hanging over their heads and pushing the to failure.  It is one of the reasons why I feel so passionate to be there, why I feel that I am at the right place when I stand in front of a minority classroom.  I am there to break the cycle, to prove history wrong and to tell another story.  I was once an ELL student just like them and I was in a "poor school."  However I was determined to not let the "single story" define me.  This is what I tell my students; of all the things I can teach them, it is the best lesson they can sit in my classroom to hear.  For I believe it can empower them to move forward and to eventually stop listening to the same "single story."