Literacy #4

Chapter 3

This reading reminded me a lot of the course work we had for 415 last semester. We talked extensively about the importance of knowing our children’s cultural background and what they are bringing to the classroom. I really enjoyed the term from this read “virtual school bags.” This refers to the “knowledges, skills and ways of being” that the children are carrying with them when they enter our classrooms. It is important for us to have an understanding of what is in these backpacks and to help them to unpack the bags to share what they bring with them with their students. By doing this, we can enrich what they already know, what they are learning, and what other students already know and are learning.
My experience with cultures outside of my own has occurred mostly outside of our country. I have travelled to places all over the world, the Middle East, Europe, Central America, South America, and Canada. In each of these different places, I have been able to experience the culture in a very authentic way. I have stayed with families in each of the different settings, I have observed the goings on of their daily lives, and I have acquired a deep understanding of who they are and how their culture has shaped them. Unfortunately though, I have not been given as many opportunities to see these cultures play out within American society. I think that it is important to know where the student’s culture originates, but there is also something to be said for knowing how these cultures function within the culture of the United States. The general tendency of culture is that it changes over time and relocation. Bringing cultures to the United States changes the nature of them almost immediately. This is important because the children (and/or their families) are really bringing in their backpack the original culture and how the culture has adapted to fit within the context of culture in the US.
What I still feel like I am lacking in regards to culture is the balance between the individual cultures (and by this I am referring to the culture in its original form) and the culture of the classroom. I hope to be able to weave all of my student’s lives together to form an atmosphere of multiculturalism, but I think that it will most definitely be a challenge for me.