Understanding the Role of My Positionality as an Educator 1

Positionality Narrative

Understanding the Role of My Positionality as an Educator

Hanah Kim

University of California, Los Angeles
























Understanding the Role of My Positionality as an Educator 2
Up until I became a part of the TEP program, I failed to examine just how much
my positionality has shaped my life experiences and how much my life experiences have
shaped my positionality. I also did not take the time to carefully think about how my
experiences and positionality created a lens in which I view ideas such as community,
education, and social justice. I had always thought that my experiences and outlook
would be an asset or something I could bring into the classroom. And although that is the
case, I realize now how important it is to also understand that the lens in which I see the
world will make a significant influence on the children who will desire to model their
behavior around me as a teacher figure they look up to. Though there are many different
aspects of my positionality that affect my ideas about community, education, and social
justice, I want to focus on three that I know influence me the most: race, class, and
religion.
I believe that being Korean-American and being raised by first generation Korean
parents plays a significant role in shaping my outlook and perspective on community. In
Korean language, there are terms like emo () and samchoon () which
translates to aunt and uncle respectively. Most of the adults in my life were regarded as
emo and samchoon, and were treated as a part of my extended family. Even at
restaurants and businesses, many of the waitresses are referred to as emo when the
customer needs something. Because this was a part of my everyday life, I never really
paused to think about how community oriented Korean people are. Now that I look back,
our doctors, CPA, realtors, and other people were all friends or friends of friends that my
parents knew or were familiar with. Because I grew up in this kind of environment
where everything was shared and people, even strangers, were seen as part of a bigger
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family, it was difficult for me to adjust to school culture and later on to the professional
world. It was almost a culture shock to have individuality and independence be promoted
constantly in school and the work force. But as much as I am acquainted with a
communal lifestyle and although I see the importance of community, I also need to be
sensitive to the fact that not everyone has had the same experiences as me and that
students might even perceive community as something negative because of how theyve
been raised and their experiences around it.
In my experience, I noticed how Koreans are communal and in these
communities, there are cultural norms and values. One of the cultural norms and values
my parents taught me was to respect and submit to adults and those who are older than
me. My father would recall stories of his entire family waiting until his father came
home in order to eat dinner. The family would have to eat dinner altogether and they
could not pick up their spoons until my grandfather picked up his spoon first. Although
my father does not require for my family to adopt this practice, I have never once
questioned my need to respect my parents and view them as authoritative figures in my
life. Also, in the Korean language, there are two ways to address an individual, one that
is formal (when you speak to an adult or someone older than you) and one that is
informal (when you speak to peers, friends, or people who you are close to). Even terms
such as brother or sister are different depending on whether or not the person is older than
you. For example, an older brother would be called obba () while a younger
brother would be called dongseng (). This positionality is important to think
about as a future educator because I have been taught that adults are to be seen as
authoritative figures and consequently, may send the same message to my students who
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do not share the same experience as me in this regard. Antonia Darder encourages
educators to redefine their role in the classroom as authoritative and argues that, teachers
must critically utilize their power in the interest of democratic life or on the side of
freedom to authorize dialogical conditions within the classroom. These conditions
support and cultivate the knowledge and experience that students bring to the classroom
and their efforts to learn, study, and produce meaningful knowledge (2002, p. 111).
Although my experiences may have shaped my perspective on what it means to be an
adult and the role that it entails, I must continuously understand not only the importance
but also the necessity of creating a democratic, two-sided, and autonomous classroom
culture because of its relationship to students learning.
Not only does being a Korean-American contribute to shaping my lens, but class
also is a significant factor especially in relationship to my perspective on education.
Growing up in a Korean middle-class family, education has always been at the top of the
priority for my parents for their children. It wasnt a question of whether or not my
brother and I would be going to college, but where we would be going and what
profession we would pursue. Both my father and mother grew up with little to no means,
and they lived day-to-day thinking whether there would be enough food on the table for
their families. To them, achieving the American dream and living comfortably was only
possible, in this day and age, through education. Therefore, although my mom hardly
spoke any English, she insisted on playing an active role in the PTAs at my school and
making sure she hired tutors to help me with my homework when she couldnt do so. My
mother sacrificed her career to be at home and my father worked hard to make sure we
receive the status and the means to access a quality education. In comparison to other
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Korean parents, my parents were more understanding of what career I wanted to pursue
and allowed me to make my own choices. However it took some time to convince them
that I, unlike my brother who always knew he wanted to be a doctor, did not want to go
to law school or medical school. I look around and can see so many of my Korean-
American friends unhappy because their parents have forced them to pursue a profession
that they found no interest in. This idea that education is the only pathway to success has
shaped the majority of my childhood and I need to be aware that this is not everyones
view or opinion about education. I need to be cautious of my own biases when I come
across families who do not share the same perspective on education as I do because I
know that my race and position in a middle-class family contributes to the way I see and
value education.
Towards the middle of the quarter, I was assigned to complete the Critical Family
History Project where I was asked to revisit my familys history for the purposes of
examining myself both culturally and historically. Through this process, I was once
again reminded of my fathers immigration story in particular. My father immigrated to
the United States with $200 in his pocket alongside some of his family members. They
had no idea where life would lead them and all they had was a hope and dream that this
land called America would bring more opportunities to succeed. My father worked in
strawberry fields and in restaurants as a busboy scrapping by as much money as he can.
He never graduated college and spoke in a thick Korean accent. However, as more and
more opportunities came along, he became a successful businessman and now our family
lives comfortably in a suburban neighborhood. In some ways, my father did fulfill the so
called, American Dream. He started off with nothing, worked hard, and became
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successful. My fathers story, and in turn, my familys story is one that I am extremely
proud of but one that I must also be reflective of. David Takacs wrote about students who
have asked the question: their parents started out poor but managed to make it through
sheer hard work. If they could do it, why cant everyone? (2003, p.31). Biases that
come with my positionalities are difficult to address because they are, for the most part,
difficult to detect. However, as an educator, it is especially important for me to confront
these hidden biases because of the influence it can have on my perspective of the students
in my classroom. In all honesty, I can easily see how being my fathers daughter and
seeing the ways he worked days and nights to provide for my family and how it led to his
success, could lead to ways that I could lack empathy as an educator. I must be reminded
of how this notion of anyone can do it if they work hard will ultimately lead me to
place the blame of poverty, societal and economic oppression onto the victims of a
broken system rather than the system itself. Furthermore, I need to also understand there
are endless factors that have shaped my fathers story, factors such as race and the
economic climate during the time of his immigration.
Lastly, I have come to understand that being Christian has definitely shaped my
perspective in a lot of ways and that it will be extremely important that I am aware of
how being Christian affects my outlook on social justice. I was born into a religious
family and it is safe to say that the church I spent 18 years of my life in is extremely
conservative. I consider my perspectives to be far more liberal than what was taught in
the church. Still, I am in the process of reconciling what my faith requires me to believe
in yet being as open-minded and understanding as possible. It has always been a struggle
for me when an entire community of people who I share the same faith with, even people
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who I have respected immensely, detest the fact that I raise questions about their
perspective on issues like LGBT. As much as I want to believe that I am this all
accepting person, I understand that having been born and raised into a certain church who
upholds certain beliefs and values, I will and am still being influenced by what has been
taught in the church.
During the four corner activity that we did in class, I had to choose a corner that
had a specific topic that would be easiest and a corner with a different topic that would be
most difficult to discuss with my class. It was then that I realized that having a
discussion around the topic of religion would be most difficult for me to openly talk
about with my students. Discussing religion would be most difficult for me because in
many ways, my faith is deeply intertwined with my identity and it would be impossible
for me to separate the two. As someone who has personal ties to the subject matter, I am
both invested in my religion as well as overly cautious that I would come off as biased or
imposing. Also, as an educator I am fearful that my students would have preconceived
ideas of who I am based off of how me being Christian is perceived in their eyes.
Truthfully, I am still reflecting on how to have an open and honest discussion on a topic I
feel strongly about and whether or not it would be appropriate for me to reveal the faith
that I practice. Although I may be uncertain of the delivery and execution, as someone
who strives for social justice education, I want to be mindful of my positionality and the
biases that come along with it and how they will affect my students.
I am beginning to see just how much my positionality as a Korean-American
Christian woman from a middle-class family provides a set of lens in which I see the
world. I admit that deep inside, I always thought of the teaching profession as relatively
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simple. I thought that I would just have to show up to the classroom and teach the
children. I realize that I accepted this notion of teaching because it is so much easier to do
so than to consider the fact that who I am as a person affects my students and that what I
value and do not value is not and should not be universally accepted. Although it is
inevitable to not have all these factors influence me, it is crucial that I am aware of how
these factors not only influence me but my students as well by way in which I teach and
interact with them. I want to learn how to embrace who I am but also be sensitive to
others and to understand that other people have a different set of lens than me. Rather
than looking at all these differences as barriers, I want to learn as a teacher how I can see
and have my students see the beauty in all of the positionalities and life experiences that
make us unique.












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References
Darner, A. (2002). Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love. Colorado:
Westview Press.
Takacs, D. (2003). How Does Your Positionality Bias Your Epistemology. The
Nea Higher Education Journal. (P.27-38).