FABULLOUS
While looking at Picasso’s Bulls in our first exercise I observed how we see things and judge them. When we started looking at the first bull we saw sad, timid, lonely bulls. Then when we looked at more abstract bulls we diminished them because we couldn’t relate to them. This made me think about the way we do that to other people. When we don’t really understand someone we box them in, categorize them, and find all of their differences or irregularities to separate them from ourselves. So I believe the only way to stop this unconscious ignorance is to learn about people and teach people about who we are, and show them that we aren’t foreign from each other.
When learning about single stories, such as the idea presented by Chimamanda Adichie in “The Danger of a Single Story,” we learned about how people are categorized by one negative thing that someone heard about them, it helped me realize the real meaning of GCE and why I am here. Many of us come from all over Chicago and the World, and we learn about each other from each other. I believe I am at GCE to fight against the single stories and stereotypes that I have been linked with. I am also here to help advocate for other people who have been a victim of single stories. I think that is a big part of GCE, having a diverse school where we can learn from each other. I think that’s what being a global citizen is all about, not seeing each other as different but finding similarities and figuring out what we can learn from each other to make ourselves a better person.
Something I also learned after the Bull Exercise is that in order to learn from someone you have to listen to them. After listening to other people speak and add things about their culture and different cultures they have studied, I think I can contribute to this community by using my good ideas and merging them with other students ideas I have listened to in order to improve all of our ideas. Which is why it is a good thing to be an interpersonal learner, so I can learn through others by socializing and talking to them. I think at school most of the times we learn as much from each other as we learn from the class.
I believe in our Crime Against Humanities class I will learn about how and why we as a people categorize others that are different from us, or suspicious to us. True freedom helps us to be unconsciously competent about the part we play in improving society by diminishing our judgmental ways. I think I will learn this through listening to others and reading stories to see more than one point of view by finding credibility in the diverse works of others. In the end, I know I will be able to create my own path to freedom and be able to leave behind the stories my ancestors wrote for me and begin to create my own.