Identity was something that I battled with going into my first teaching experience. My last name Smajlovic is not one that lends itself to being easily remember or pronounced by many people, let alone students. Therefore, going into my first classroom experience I sought to provide an info-graphic that would help the students pronounce my name. I became Mr. Smile-O-vich, a very close pronunciation of my last name. However, I was worried, that students would not be able to say my last name so I dulled myself down to Mr. S. This was based on my experiences with how my name (an important aspect of my identity) has been previously pronounced, taken on and depreciated by others.
As my practicum experience went along I was very surprised to see and hear that very few of my students used the name Mr. S, instead they often stared off into the corner of the room to find the info-graphic and used Smile-O-vich. Without knowing it each and every one of these students was showing respect for my identity, they were treating me as the identity that I had constructed and identified with myself.
What this really illustrated for me was how we can (and should) respect the many identities of our students. As what they seek to identify with.
This linked me to my student experience at UBC where in one of our classes we discussed the importance of race, identity, religion, culture, gender, diversity, multiculturalism. And this amazing video that looks to help us de-construct and then re-construct our experiences of identity: Below is my response to this activity and video.
This video challenged our own construction of the three R’s. “Rituals, Relationships and Restrictions”. Through the constructions the speaker introduces her own experiences where she prefers to be viewed through the lens of “where she is a local”, and while she is “Ghanaian, America, British etc.” she chooses her identity based on her experiences of there she is a local. While I understand and agree with her points and understand the meanings that she makes I struggled with where my identity which is deeply embedded with my ethnicity and culture could find meaning within this concept of “locality”. Yes I am a Vancouverite from East Vancouver, but I am also a Bosnian, a refugee, a war survivor, a brother, a child, a soon to be uncle. I was unable to remove myself from these labels of my own construction of identity and the meanings that they have for me. While I identify as a local I also identify as my nation identity because of the experience that have gone into the creation of the idea of the nation of Bosnia. Therefore, while I agree with the speaker, I also challenge myself to construct my own identity with my own meaning, much like we learn to teach our students to do.
