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.