Do I have the full picture?

Do I have the full picture? I feel as if I was a little bit conflicted when thinking about this question. I grew up in a sparsely diverse community, I was exposed to people who did not look like me, but not enough for me to fully grasp what it was like to experience diversity on a daily basis as a child. When doing the face test, I was bothered by this fact. My experience with diversity was not as present when I was a child.. It is not the same now as it was when I was growing up, and for that I am thankful. I am a lot more aware and empathetic and understand the importance of standing with people who may be marginalized in our society. I started to realize when watching the last video about Ruby Bridges, that the schooling I received was not benefiting my awareness, by not exposing me to the depth of the injustices that non-white people have had to go through, and still are going through.

When reading through and thinking about the assignments this week, I feel as if it would be wrong for me to say I have the full picture. I understand and empathize with marginalized diverse groups now more than ever in my life. But I have never personally experienced these injustices. I grew up knowing that my teachers would treat me the way I felt I was supposed to be treated, and it is one of the hardest things in the world knowing that some children did not, and still do not feel that way based on the color of their skin. I think it is wise for all of us to have this awareness to prevent being dysconsciously racist. We may not think we as teachers are doing anything wrong by preventing students from hearing some of the hard parts of history, and sticking to teaching the way we were taught. But our lack of awareness and unwillingness/unknowingness to try and have the full picture, we put every student at a disadvantage.