Kirsten Campbell
ENGL 478 G
Week 4 Post
Literature, movies, television, culture parades, the internet, and theater inform my perspective of the world. From a young age, I have been fascinated by other cultures, wanting to try foods and persuading my parents to explore outside the U.S. That has not happened yet, but they may change their mind soon. Attending a school with a sizeable Hispanic population also informed my perspective because a lot of my friends are Hispanic, and they all have different backgrounds and lifestyles. For theater, we even have a group dedicated to displaying Hispanic culture. We had a huge showcase with various scenes, music, and dances to inform others of their perspective of Hispanic culture. Not only did my town celebrate Hispanic culture, but our high school held a culture fair every year. There are performances, food, and vendors, all run by high school students.
“When students enter my classroom from a similar culture as mine I cannot just assume they have had the same upbringing as myself.” “The roots of a culture may be the same but that does not mean the lives that stem from the roots will all be the same, everyone is unique and that is an important thing to remember for me as a future teacher”(Szeci, P.46). This portion of the text sticks out to me because people and even our students make assumptions about how people live based on their culture. For example, if a person knows a Hispanic person whose family lives with their grandparents, they might assume it is what all Hispanics do. Or, like in the text, a student assumed all Muslims were terrorists and that the hijab that women wore represented terrorism. These resources, such as literature, movies, and the Internet, serve as a window to reaching an understanding of culture. Still, we must remember to our students that these depictions and experiences can be different for many people in the same culture. We do not want our students to stereotype a culture just because of events occurring to a book or movie character.
There are plenty of benefits and drawbacks to using technology. We could use technology to have students do research on different cultures or watch videos of current events happening in the world around us. The drawback of technology is the amount of fake news we have today, and it could stray someone away from the truth. There is a lot of horrible fake news out there that changes people's perspectives on not only politics but also cultures. Like Kermit says, “It ain’t easy being green.”
References:
Szeci, T., Spillman, C., Vazquez-Montilla, E., & Mayberry, S., (2010), Transforming teacher cultural landscapes by reflecting on multicultural literature.
Hi Kirsten!
ReplyDeleteThat quote on pg. 46 of the article also resonated with me, as well. This is something I fret that a lot of people do when thinking about people who are from different cultures than themselves. I feel as though people can often stereotype if we aren't careful in explaining that this might be a cultural thing, however, it doesn't mean that everyone holds these values or traditions.
As far as the technology portion goes, I also have a hard time with fake news and fear inducing articles or posts. Some of my best friends fall into these traps way too often and think the world is ending tomorrow. It's important for us to check credibility of sources when literally anyone can put things out into the world whether it be fact or fiction.
Thank you for sharing!
Sam
"The roots of a culture may be the same but that does not mean the lives that stem from the roots will all be the same, everyone is unique and that is an important thing to remember for me as a future teacher”(Szeci, P.46). This resonated with me as well. Everyone is unique. As teacher we need to open-minded and not judgmental. We do not know what students are going through at home. When I was a behavioral teacher, I thought about this a lot. When students blow up or break down, we have no idea how much they dealt with before even entering schools. Some teachers thought the blow up or break down was because of them or their class, but it just might have been the last straw in a pile of straws. What we can do is be supportive and teach ways to cope with stress and frustration. We might be able to offer them books that show how others have dealt with stuff. A character that the student can relate to or maybe gain hope from.
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