Standpoint Theory

This week we talked about standpoint theory and how it accounts for our inability to be truly objective because we all come from a standpoint, which includes elements such as location, gender and race.  

Thinking about this theory made me think about my recent struggle with a developing a lesson plan. Good teachers often try to take into account their students interests; however we can never truly know what they will think of a topic, even when we think we have begun to really know them. A history teacher I work with is currently teaching the mid war era and is focusing on the topic of bootleggers, prohibition, and the current Mexican drug trade. He finds that the students quite enjoy this unit. So I have the challenge of creating a lesson that will go along side this. I choose to develop the lesson, “the history of the teenager” to show how social life changed so much in the 1920s moving forward. I wanted to bring in local and current articles that portray teenagers today and after a long search I found one article in the Saskatoon Bridges on the “Idle no More” movement. After sharing this with my co-op teacher he pointed out to me that my article was written by adults talking about 19-30 years olds as if they were young people. I did not have an article after all that reflected teens if the authors did not have this standpoint. So what now? Plan B: Have the students do a web quest and free search on, “what is teen culture today?” Even then “Seventeen Magazine”, popular “teen” websites, and blogs are written by adults, often those in their 20-30s, not teenagers. I hope to pose the question to my students, “Do you think that the online web findings, the media, and the news portray you as a teenager correctly? How would you describe 2013 Canadian teen culture to someone else years down the road?

This history teacher also pointed out to me that although I am still quite young, I simply don’t know what it is to be like a teenager from these student’s standpoints and that they simply have to tell me. I am so glad we had this conversation so I didn’t end up having my students read articles written by adults about young people. I look forward to hearing what they have to say and to see if they can spot the stereotypes in what they find during their web searches. We try our best to know our students but often their standpoints are made up of many elements that we can’t always see.  

-Week 9, Sarah