Author Savindi Jinasena
Rita Pierson’s 2013 TED Talk “Every kid needs a champion” is one of my favourite talks by an educator. It has resonated with me so much because belief in a child matters more than we could ever understand. I also speak from experience because between the ages of 7-13, and I did not have any teachers who believed in me in Sri Lanka. The competition was prioritized over creativity and authenticity. Pierson mentions, “we rarely discuss the value and importance of human connection.” When I think about my Sri Lankan education experience, I think about the absence of connection. I never felt valued as a student, nor did I believe teachers cared for me. I had a conversation with my best friend about our school experiences in Grades 6-9. Now that we’re both 30-year-old women, it seemed like we were old enough to talk about our experiences. There’s still a cultural taboo of discussing educators in a negative light, despite there being truth to those experiences. We both talked about how isolated we felt in school and how teachers never noticed us. We also discussed the head Art teacher at our school, an institutional presence since my mom (old alumni) was at the school. This teacher was awful, and my best friend didn’t take art because of her. I discussed being a late bloomer and how I would not survive such a harsh competitive school environment. My talents as a student could not compete with those who excelled in sports, sciences, and math. There was no room for a child who got lost in stories, wanted to write stories and cared about learning history. In the TED talk, Pierson says, “you know, kids don’t learn from people they don’t like,” about a colleague who says, “they don’t pay me to like the kids.” There’s a part of me that is sad to say that I don’t think about my Sri Lankan educators fondly because I did not feel a connection or have a relationship with them. What stood out to me was when my best friend said the teachers we had were “indifferent” towards us. Both of us felt the teachers had no passion for what they taught or the students. There could be several reasons for this- substantial class sizes (40+ students), disagreeing with the curriculum, biases etc. Despite those early experiences, the one teacher who became a champion for me was my grade 8 homeroom teacher Mrs. Harold. She was my first teacher when I came to Canada in 2003, and I still keep in touch with her. She believed in me throughout my educational journey. Two years ago, she said to me, “why should students respect you if you’re not going to respect them,” and those words have stayed with me to this day. Students should feel they have someone in their corner, someone who believes in all their humanity and possibilities. For me, Mrs. Harold was that person, and I hope I can be someone like that in the future. References TEDtalksDirector. (2013, May 03). Every kid needs a champion | Rita Pierson. Retrieved November 30, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFnMTHhKdkw
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USWe are a collective Group of Educators in many different fields, all completing (or have completed) a Masters of Education at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. we all have an interest in teaching and learning with equity in mind. Archives
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