To sum up the themes that I noticed from this article, I would say: resilience, compassion, healing.
There were quite a few moments that I found myself pausing on. The first of these moments is when I saw: "It is through stories that we come to understand our curriculum of the world and how our education curriculum embeds itself within this." To begin with this, I always like to start by taking things literally. What exactly is a "curriculum of the world"? If we apply my interpretation of the meaning of curriculum here, it is a blend of skills, content and ideas that are to be delivered to a set of learners. Applying that meaning to the world here, it begs the question: what exactly is the world trying to teach us? I like to think of the world in a natural sense as ultimately being a neutral, emotionless stage that happens to contain biased, emotional entities all throughout. Whether you're a mosquito whose interests lie in gathering nutrients for your offspring, or a person with many complex layers and resulting motivations, we complement the cold, broad universe with our story-rich depths. With each entity formed of matter and energy, there is a story behind it. With each proton, electron, etc., there is a sequence of events that it has been involved in, most definitely intersecting with other layered entities of the world. And so it makes sense to me that these stories are how we tap into the world; all meanings of life stem from life itself, and all life has its own story to learn from. If the curriculum of the world is a blend of skills, content and ideas that has to do with the world and its goals for us, then the stories are the vehicles that let us learn. The world, as a culmination of each thread of story, is akin to an infinite-ply rope of sequences. But what is the goal set out for us by the stage of the world? I would argue it is to exist and be, and the stories are countless examples of how to do so, and how others have done so.
As for my next exploration of thought, I wanted to comment on the depths of the things we don't understand. In EDST 401, which is a class on schools as institutions, there was a discussion about what we felt was missing or unaddressed in the UBC teacher education program's curriculum. For my answer, I said that the curriculum fails to (and probably can never) truly capture and address the sheer diversity of people we have to engage with as teachers, and that there is almost an arrogance behind many of the theories being given to us as if they are one-size-fits-all ideas. How does this connect to the article? Well, I found myself saying to myself, "I don't think I will ever be able to fully grasp the extent of the emotions that these teen moms have gone through." Even though the words are there, can we really say that words are enough to express the struggles, but also the joys, solace, compassion and sense of belonging and all the other wide ranges of emotions that they experienced as part of being in such unique positionalities? As a cisgender straight male whose only non-normative trait is not being White, I don't think I could ever experience something quite like what these people have gone through. However, it makes me want to be the kind of person who can adapt all my interactions to be positive in both intent and perception. Because I don't know the depths of the emotions and stories of people other than myself, the next best thing is to seek an understanding and be one less frustrating person in their lives.
Aside from that, I found this to be a rather touching article. I found myself going "good for you, SSSC" in my head, because really it's great stuff. Teenage mothers have a whole slew of complexities that I can't even begin to touch on, and the fact that they can be supported with a world of solidarity feels like something is right with the world.
OK -- mostly not really about the article, but very broadly philosophical. I am glad you came back to the article by the end!
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