Critical Identity Autobiography by Nathaniel Kim

Cultures

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:12:05 UTC

I lived in Liberia for 2 years and stayed for longer than 1 month in England, Nepal, South Africa, Thailand, Jamaica. I think this has given me the great privilege of learning through experience how to culturally code-switch, while also giving me a front row seat to see the ripples of violence caused by American militarism and capitalism

Ethnicity

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:13:08 UTC

I'm half white and half Korean. My father was prevented from learning Korean by his principal in the 70s. Growing up in the suburbs there was an ambient feeling of otherness that I was unable to identify but that I've been able to find tools to unpack and relate to the broader project of race in America.

Regional Backgrounds

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:13:39 UTC

I have lived in Ohio/NY/Delaware/Virginia/Colorado/PA and have family from ~20 states around the country. A blind spot for me was definitely the South, but some wise friends checked me and helped me separate regional differences from stereotypes

Religion

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:14:20 UTC

I was raised Presbyterian, took religion classes in college that were pretty good about being open to all faiths. My first large exposure to Muslim Americans was definitely with my students in Philly, which led to a lot of learning experiences.

Gender

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:14:47 UTC

I am a cis Male. Various friends and cousins have come out as trans at various stages of life resulting in learning experiences

Disability

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:15:15 UTC

My cousin has autism, which was formative at a young age. Also formative to compare now her access vs that of my students in Philly w similar disabilities

Class

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:15:39 UTC

My parents always expressed feelings of being middle class, but thinking critically (they were both college professors) we were probably in the 95th percentile of income

Age

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:16:05 UTC

We visited elderly churchgoers often as a kid. Have worked with Kindergarten thru college age learners in some capacity

Family Structure

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:16:34 UTC

This is probably the thing I had the least exposure to growing up in the suburbs. Many mistakes and opportunities for learning now as a teacher

Opportunities to Learn

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:16:53 UTC

Every day as a teacher is definitely an opportunity to learn. I've learned the correct language, (families instead of parents, clarifying pronouns on the first day, personal experiences or lenses that I thought were universal) through messing up and trying to do better.

What is present in your life history?

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:17:25 UTC

A lot of privilege early in life from a positionality of otherness, giving me a formative critical lens, and a lot of exposure to different people giving me opportunities to apply this lens

What is missing as a part of your own life history?

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:17:46 UTC

Reasons to distrust the system stemming from personal experience. With certain students who are committed to Not Learning, I think I sometimes still misrepresent in my mental reconstruction the set of experiences that has led them to that point

What conscious or unconscious biases may you hold about any categories that are different from your lived experiences?

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:18:11 UTC

I think my first learning experiences being in the context of whitewashed, genocidal propaganda characteristic of the post-9/11 Bush years creeps back in more than I can identify. I catch myself defaulting to certain identities as the 'norm', an inherent centering of my own self.

What are the implications of these findings for your own teaching or administrating practice?

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:18:36 UTC

There's been a few times a student has disclosed a part of their identity to me and my initial response has veered too close into novelty. I've worked to achieve, but still have further to go, in practicing a meditative-like openness to uncertainty, to the idea that I'm not aware of my students identities or experiences until I ask them, regardless of what I might think I know from appearances.

What are the implications of these findings for the children with whom you will work?

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:19:00 UTC

It's interesting when my students recite some of the same boilerplate reactionary opinions about other people's identities, or their own, that I was raised not to question. This always helps me recenter the learning that should occur in our classroom as communal; there are certain identities of theirs that I can't fully understand, but I also have a lot of exposure to different identities that they might have only seen portrayed on TikTok. Barring instances of bigotry coming from their mouths, I'm trying to step back from 'running' our morning circle to contributing as one voice out of many.

What kinds of goals for your own professional growth can you make based on these reflections?

nathaniellkim — 2025-01-19 15:19:21 UTC

I think I'm entering a really crucial stretch as a teacher where I'm well-established enough that the systemic failures around me are all fully visible, AND the feeling of routine that I'm experiencing this year means it's easy to confine students into pre-established boxes, rather than taking them on their own terms as aggressively as I might have as a flawed but energetic first year teacher. I'd like to commit to never settling to presume anything about a student without seeking first to understand them.