Week 2: Culture

“Culture and its Complexities” covers so many aspects of the daunting question, what is culture?  I really like how the author brought up the thought of what culture does being more important than what culture is.  I really liked this thought because I’m so intrigued by cultures and how they affect how people interact with one another.  Identity formation is also addressed which is an indirect consequence of culture.  Thinking of identity formation made me think about what the author would have to say about the identity formation of someone who grew up in two very different cultures and the factors that would come into play.

The author of “Exploring Culture” gives the tip of raising culture to a conscious level.  The example is given of a boy who does not know that in the United States students are expected to raise their hands to be called on before they speak.  The teacher in the example talks to the whole class about how it is expected that everyone raise their hand to be called on.  This example kind of bothered me because the teacher needs to be also culturally sensitive to that student.  It’s perfectly fine to let students from other countries aware of cultural norms here in the U.S., but you also want to make sure you are not belittling their culture or making it sound like one culture is better than another.  I think it is important for teachers to be culturally sensitive and learn how to approach situations like this one.  I also think it is important for teachers to be educated on their student’s cultures.  If they are educated on cultural norms of their student’s cultures, then they will better know how to introduce U.S. norms into their classroom.

Hinkel talks briefly about inner speech in the process of cultural development.  I have never really thought about how children start to develop that inner speech as children when they listen to dialogues between adults.  Children develop organizational patterns of culture.  I found the different stages very interesting.  Reading about private speech and inner speech made me think about my niece.  It made me wonder at what age or stage in development do children go from private speech to inner speech.

1/21 Reading

Culture is such a complex word and involves so many different aspects.  The author of the readings does a great job of trying to come up with a broad definition that involves all of the different parts of culture.  Although I think that Morgan's definition is a good one, I don't think that anyone can come up with a universal definition.  I think that there are just so many different parts to a culture that can be so deep rooted that people outside of a culture would not notice.  I don’t think I could come up with a better definition than the author but I do think that there would be some piece that got left out.  It just seems impossible to cover everything that is a part of a culture.  I like how Morgan talks about being able to learn a lot about student’s culture by have discussions.  I had never really thought about the idea before.  Student’s responses to stories could tell a great deal about their beliefs, their community, and their family.  In chapter 4, Morgan talks about her struggle with trying to understand the different forms of “you” in French.  It made me think of my struggle with that same grammar rule in Spanish.  Only if you are truly immersed in the culture can you understand the rule.  Even then it would probably be difficult.  I had also never really thought about the different functions of language and thought that was really interesting.  After reading, I thought about all the different phrases my Spanish teacher in Mexico taught me while I was living there this past summer.  He was teaching me phrases that can’t be literally translated into English.  Some of the phrases were really hard for me to understand because they were a part of the culture there.  After some explaining I understood. I also liked how she discussed the distinction between language used to participate in a culture and language used to learn the culture.  I will be applying both of these practices into my classroom.  Although I was not born and raised in Mexico, I am Mexican and feel that I have a good understanding of the culture.  I want to use the language to learn more about my students and their culture, but also to participate in the culture so that my classroom can feel like a community and I can build authentic relationships with my students.

A Little About Me

Hi! I'm Becca and I'm majoring in Bilingual Elementary Education.  I will be doing PDS and student teaching in Little Village, Chicago next year and am super excited about it!  I am very excited about this class what it will teach me!