Our perception of events which have taken place throughout history is influenced by different cultural factors which construct our understanding. These factors include misinformation, news sources, government, our own realities, family, friends etc. As Professor Erickson mentioned in Political Science, everything we learn is a model of something else. For example, if we learn about the War on Terror, what we come to understand is a model of the war, not the war itself as we were not there to experience it ourselves. This leaves a lot of room for inaccuracy.

This concept was mentioned in the paper The Role of Interpretative Communities in Remembering and Learning by Farhat Shahzad. One of the first factors to look at which influences our understanding is misinformation. As the 18 year old female student mentioned in the Shahzad paper, “I feel misinformed as a Canadian. I believe [that] we are not being informed of [the] exact realities by our media and [the] government.” The way in which a news source portrays an event contributes to how it becomes constructed in our minds. Without being there to experience the event first hand, it can be difficult to sort out what is true and what statements will leave us misinformed (especially when the information is coming from a reliable news source).

Our families and the way in which we are raised impacts how we come to understand things that happen in the world around us. As mentioned in the Shahzad essay, “These prior relationships may be important in determining the process and product of recalling together, particularly when considering the functions of collective remembering (Harris, Paterson & Kemp, 2008, p. 222).” The people in our lives impact the way in which we comprehend information. We grow up watching the way our parents react to information and have it relayed to us in a way that they deem adequate. In these young years, our opinions and viewpoints are formed. Although they can later be altered, this time impacts our later understanding of world events. Our teachers in school often also contribute to how we learn to interpret events as along with our parents, they train us how to consume and interpret knowledge (Shahzad). 

For example, growing up in a primarily white town in Southern Ontario, my understanding of other cultures was limited, as were my parents. We didn’t talk about other cultures and we certainly didn’t spend much time researching the conflicts which took place in them. When 9/11 took place it was the first time I had heard of the Middle East and because I was so young, the detail I received about the attacks was minimal. What I knew was that the al-Qaeda was responsible and they were from the Middle East. It wasn’t until middle school when I was suddenly sent to a new school where as a caucasian female, I was the minority. I was experiencing culture shock when I met a kind girl named Yasmine. She looked different than me and her english was very broken so I could tell she wasn’t from Canada, but she was kind and wonderful to talk to. What they didn’t tell us at school was about the other people living in those areas, how they were just like the people that I knew in Canada; they were good people. Despite my ignorance, my new friend was patient with me and explained the ins and outs of her families culture. I left that conversation feeling embarrassed and confused; how could I have gotten it so wrong? Although I believed her, I did some of my own research. Still when I typed in “September 11th attacks” negative things about the Middle East came up, of course. I then realized it was time to broaden my search, “beautiful culture of the Middle East” and “people of the middle east” turned up results that lined up with what Yasmine had told me. 

Although our understanding can be “socially mediated” by our various “interpretive communities”, as stated in the Shahzad essay, there are ways we can construct our own understanding to avoid coming across as ignorant. It is important to be critical of even reliable news sources, although it can be nearly impossible to sort out what information is true at times. Also, although the people we learn from, like teachers, family, friends, etc, may have their own understanding of an event which they are content with, it is important to challenge that knowledge until we are satisfied with our own comprehension.