When considering the potential for a personal reflection of
my experiences through high school many ideas come to mind of ways culture and
identity play a highly influential role through the discovery of whom one is
going to become and where your life could potentially take you. Dramatic
sounding, I’m sure, but when reading Sociology on Culture by Hall, J.R., Neitz,
M.J. & Battani, M. (2003. It became apparent to me that curriculum and
teachers have a highly influential role in the formation of norms and truths
that represent what I would consider the wider community. Yet, peers have a
highly influential role (possibly most significant role) in harbouring those
ideas presented to them by teachers and creating cast views on normality and
acceptance.
Primary
school was a multicultural experience, within a mixing pot of cultures and
belief systems. There was a high level of encouragement to tolerate and support
others with different customs and norms to your own. In Reid & Sriprakash (2012)
paper tolerance is somewhat defined as the not complete agreement with
another’s views or beliefs, yet a level of acceptance which in turn does not
inhibit the others existence.
Multiculturalist acceptance is a significant part of schooling life and
in turn helps to shape generations of tolerate people. Yet, this tolerance is
not extended to students with intellectual or physical disabilities. When my
brother entered mainstream school, the Autism Association encouraged the
education of students in his class and others in his grade of his spectrum
disorder. This was a means to gain tolerance and support for fellow peers
within his grade. The response was the opposite, word spread throughout the
school resulting in the bulling of my brother and myself. Until my brother was
defined as abnormal/different the students were fairly tolerant. Once it was
alerted to them by people of authority, it became factual and strange.
Therefore from this experience, education of what is called abnormal is not
adequate to enable people whom are different to function within this institution.
When
entering high school, my parents moved me (and my brother) to a private school
(K-12). This time choosing not to educate the students of my brother’s
disability, due to the unhelpful effects of the last experience. They educated
the teachers whom had to keep the information confidential. This type of
approach of under educating the general population should in theory cause there
to be intolerant behaviour, due to a lack of understanding (Reid & Sriprakash,
2012). Yes, bullying occurred due to him
not fitting the standardised norms of most individuals in the grade, yet there
was greater tolerance.
From
this experience, my reflection is that the mere education of individuals within
society of different norms is not enough for there to be tolerance and
acceptance. There needs to be introduction of separation of stereotypes and the
introduction of finding commonalties. Like in Reid & Sriprakash (2012), my
brother and I experienced ironic difference through being in a place in which
we belonged, the education system, yet isolated by the stereotypes that
surround my brother and his disability.
References:
Hall, J.R., Neitz, M.J. & Battani, M. (2003). Sociology on culture. London: Routledge.
Chapter 2: Culture, self and society.
Reid, C. and Sriprakash, A. (2012). The Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education. London: Routledge. The possibility of cosmopolitan
learning: reflecting on future directions for diversity of teacher educations
in Australia.
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