I was identified as gifted when I was in Grade 5, which meant every year I'd get an IPRC, where I'd meet with my parents and the resource teacher and they'd make a plan for how to get the most out of my education.
The one thing the resource teachers always did (every single resource teacher over the years did this - I can think of at least three individual teachers and I'm sure I'm missing some) was put in the plan that I should raise my hand and answer more questions in class.
Even looking back at it as an adult, I don't understand what that was supposed to achieve. (I knew that I knew the answers, I was just staying quiet to avoid bullying.) But there was very strong messaging that I should raise my hand and give the teachers the answers I already knew I already knew, that doing so would be a good thing, and that failing to do so was a bad thing.
Similarly, as a shy person who doesn't always speak in groups, I've gotten a lot of "You should speak up! You should contribute!" as social skills advice.
As though I necessarily have something not just to say, but to contribute? I can't fathom what that might be!
So for the first 30ish years of my life, I was receiving constant messaging that I should say something, anything. That not putting in my two cents is practically not pulling my weight.
And then, when I was well into my 30s, I was exposed for the first time to the concept of staying in one's lane.
This was literally the first time in my life I had heard that perhaps I shouldn't speak up, perhaps I don't have anything to contribute to a given discussion.
(When I was a kid, adults would tell me to be quiet and not to talk back in a given moment, but on a philosophical/theoretical level they definitely would have said I should speak up and contribute.)
Now, I can't tell you how much of this "you should speak up and contribute" was because I'm white, and I can't tell you whether my non-white classmates were treated differently. My school was fairly small (if you had shown me a photo of any of my classmates, I could have instantly told you their name and something about them) and there were so few non-white students that I could count them without running out of fingers.
I cannot think of/remember a single instance of any of my classmates, of any race, being urged to systematically speak up more or to systematically be quiet. But also, I wasn't paying attention to such things at the time, so who knows what I might have missed?
If there was any difference in how we were treated, I'm sure the adults would have told you they were treating us as individuals, based on our individual needs. And there simply isn't enough data to suggest otherwise - I had too few non-white classmates to identify any sort of pattern.
But the fact of the matter is there were, in raw numbers, a lot of white people around in that time and place, and other times and places like it. I can't possibly have been the only person who was told to speak up and contribute. (I seriously doubt the adults around me would have come up with an all new unprecedented piece of advice just for me!)
Maybe the world would be a better place if more of us were told there are some times and places where you should sit down, be quiet and listen - and not just when those in power and authority are talking.
5 comments:
This is a really interesting post. It's inspired 3 thoughts for me.
- As someone who was always raising my hand and "contributing", I wish I had been taught about holding back and making space for others. I was never the lecturing type (those IME are almost exclusively male), but still, I'm now trying to teach myself to take up less space, and it's not easy, after a lifetime habit of raising my hand.
- "the concept of staying in one's lane." I hate this so much. This is not an idea that should be given any credence. This is nothing more than a form of "shut up, you don't know what you're talking about".
- Is it possible when you were a child, those who were telling you to speak up and contribute were trying to boost your self-confidence? Speaking up in class, for many people, is not so much knowing the answers, as an exercise in public speaking.
2. I found the concept of staying in one's lane is something I very much needed to hear at the point when I heard it (and perhaps even earlier). I would have confidently made some extremely ignorant and assholic statements that I didn't even know were ignorant and assholic if I hadn't heard it when I did, and that's not the person I want to be. It very much saved me, so I embrace it.
3. I don't know what their intentions were, but I can't imagine how speaking up in class would have boosted my self-confidence. Maybe if had magically been teleported into an alternate universe where my peers responded positively it could have boosted my self-confidence, but I was in the same classes with the same peers who responded the same way they always had.
2. I must have come upon this concept very late, when it had already morphed into something very negative. The only way I've heard it used is (for example) when a sports columnist writes about a political or social issue currently going on in sports. Or an actor speaks up on a social issue. Someone tells them they have no right to have a public opinion on this topic.
I had no idea the expression had roots in compassion and kindness. I'm glad it helped you.
3. I hear you. Got it.
I've never heard that sense of "stay in your lane" before!
When it reached me, it was like "Maybe you should let Indigenous people comment on Indigenous issues and stay out of the way."
And then, after I'd read precisely one (1) book on the topic, I learned how foolish the comments I was planning to make were.
That idea, however expressed, is SO important. In the disability movement, people say "Nothing about us, without us." Enough non-disabled experts and educators telling people with disabilities what's best for them. If you want to know what we need, work with us. We are experts about our own lives.
And totally different than the way I heard SIYL used. :)
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