“When One Story Becomes The Only Story.”

The inspiring story of Marijke van der Hiel. One of my teachers and inspirations. Enjoy this weeks piece!

Ruby

Feb 08, 2021

“When One Story Becomes The Only Story.”

Cause: Dismantling single stories

Avenues used: Educating

Methods used: Discussion, multiple perspectives and research

I am an expat kid who has had the privilege to have met vastly different people over the years, and something that has genuinely moved me is the stories that they hold dear to them. If I have learned one thing from all of them, it is that I cannot take first-hand cultured stories for granted. Globally, we are enemies of all of our stories because of how morphed they become when entering through all of our different lenses.

Ms. van der Hiel was given the opportunity as a third culture kid to see beyond her hometown. Oftentimes our parents, unknowingly, dip us through only their cultures and forget that not revealing all that is out there limits us from understanding the world and its people. Ms. van der Hiel had her Dutch relatives visit her every once in a while in the United States. These visits made her curious about what was out there, the world beyond what she had. This impacted her future because her curiosity sparked initiative. At 16 years old, she became a foreign exchange student in Australia. Once she took this challenge, she no longer felt boxed in, and possibilities opened up for her. This challenge became the steppingstone to her future. After graduating, she tried to find out what to do with her life, but she knew she wanted to be abroad for certain. While attending a political university in Paris, the economy declined, and she had to make a change. Rather than react to fear, she found herself accepting an unpaid internship for a native American organization in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This job gave Ms. van der Heil another chance to "listen to other people's stories, understand the cultures and see things from a different perspective." She included that she was not reading about these cultures but instead, truly experiencing them. She loved it, although now she needed a real job, which was when she went to law school. It consumed her and her new open and adventurous life.

Her friend recommended a free tutoring position so that she could step away from law school for a bit. She tutored an 8th-grade boy who no one else wanted to teach. Ms. van der Hiel started with this boy that was diagnosed with ADHD, Dyslexia, and Dysgraphia. Frequently, kids with disabilities are put into a single story of being a disability rather than being a person first. She was keen to observe past this boy's disability and recognize him as a person. She taught him for a year and realized that she wanted to be a teacher. Before her long-term teaching career, all of these experiences and jobs helped her teach with external knowledge and tactics.

Ms. van der Hiels's experiences internationally have provoked more opportunities for her to assimilate her philosophy in teaching. It has indeed paid off because Ms. van der Hiel, now my 8th grade World Geo teacher, stresses to her co-workers and other people of the school community that classroom learning does not just come through the lens of grades and needing to know textbook content. "Most of the history textbooks for schools are through this Eurocentric lens," she said. This sometimes minimizes the voices of the regions taught because they are being told through the Europeans' lens. She encourages discussions, questions, and passion-driven lessons to broaden the diversity of the class. We are asked to see past a biased resource, understand content from multiple perspectives, and think deeper. Teachers should transition to this concept because of the incredible impact it makes on students. Not only does it inspire kids to incorporate their current passions within the class, but it also teaches kids to recognize their bias in "single stories," spoken of by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, to over 25 million people on the internet. This skill is a lifelong skill that you won't just use on a test that determines whether they pass or fail; it is a skill that you will use in your day to day life to save yourself from discriminating against people and supporting dehumanizing systems.

As Ms. van der Hiel's student, I have learned from her philosophy and her story, and it has shaped me as a person. Marijke van der Hiel is intentionally trying in every way she can to disregard the single stories that rob her and everyone else of the full truth. She holds to the danger of "the single-story becoming the only story." This groundbreaking idea that the easiest way to truly understand a story from the media, conversations, and readings is when it goes through your filter. All of our filters have diverse ways of processing information. Your positionality can lead to dangerous biases. Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist, wrote that we need a balance of stories. Sometimes we see incredible stories, but there are also many horror stories in our humanity because not everyone's life is easy, and not everything works well for people, but that's what makes us who we are. All of our stories come together to sculpt this humanity. Ms. van der Hiel wants her students to acknowledge the lenses that they view the world through and understand its impact on others and themselves as they travel through life.

With gratitude for everyones support throughout my writing,

Ruby Gardner (she/her/hers)

Ordinary With Extraordinary-Column

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