When learning about new things, especially about people, we should recognize that there is a certain level of trust in it because they are opening and telling us something personal. Even when it comes to small things, we should still respect the person and show that it was the right decision to trust us with this information. For example, when some of my classmates were sharing about what elders they wanted to honour they had told stories about their elders. When this information is sacred it is meant for only a few people who are trusted and is intended to be kept that way unless it is permitted for you. Another thing is some of this information is very personal to that person or people, hence keeping this information private can show that they can trust you. When I share something personal with people, I care about whether I wouldn’t want them to share it with other people. It’s important to learn that learning does involve recognizing that some knowledge is sacred and only should be shared when giving permission.
In this exercise, we were able to listen and share with our peers. We might have known some of the people in our class and some we were just meeting that day. In my experience I have noticed if you know more about a person the more you trust and feel comfortable around them. For example, when I first meet people, I tend to be more closed off but still friendly. As we learn new things about each other I get more open and talk more. As we were all sharing, we were learning new things about each other and slowly we went from strangers to classmates. While I was listening, I learned that some of my classmates and I have a lot of things in common. When I was listening to the first round of questions, I noticed that a lot of people didn’t know where a lot of their family was from and all though I couldn’t relate to it I could understand how they didn’t know. On the last round of the questions, I could relate to a lot of what my classmates were saying about missing our childhoods and wishing we could go back to it. In that I was able to relate to a lot of the words they were saying about how they were like when they were younger. From this exercise we were able to start building a community in our classroom.
