Personal Culture

1. iPhone: this is my day to day communication

2. Education: there is an expectation of going to college

3. Religion: I go to the church building three hours every week

4. Transportation: Mazda 3, I'm always driving everywhere

5. Birthday parties: the most important celebration of the year

6. Political association: Democratic party

7. Christmas (and other holiday) traditions: example--sitting on Santa's lap

8. Photo communication: Snapchat

9. Public Education

10. Family dinners

11. Temple marriage: belief that families are forever

12. Family dynamic: Men work, women stay home while children are young

13. Hiking: nature is meant to be enjoyed

14. Gardening: emphasis on being self sufficient

15. Life Goal: have a family!

16. Believing all children, including those with disabilities can achieve (Special Education)

17. Traveling: acquaintance with other cultures is required

18. Hamburgers and Hot dogs, anything on the BBQ

19. Body language: Folded arms = closed off

20. Dress: focus on modesty

21. Straightforward communication: Clear and focused on getting things done

(I didn't know what kind a visual to include for this one and it wouldn't let me embed the youtube video I found about being straightforward in the workplace https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMfJNFDtcko)

Review of Personal Culture:

The first thing that I learned about my personal culture was how much of it is based in my religion. I remember my father once saying that religion is a part of us, not just something we do, and I now am understanding that. My life goals, standards, traditions and beliefs all came from my religion. Everything I know and do can come back to my knowledge that I am a child of God and so is everyone else around me. The LDS religion isn't the only religion that influences culture; any student in the classroom who is active in a religion may have the same experience that I have had with a religiously based culture.

I also have a cultural focus on family and education. I knew that family mattered to me, but I had never thought of it as an essential element of my culture. My family has always had a focus on education, and that is easily one of the most important elements of my culture. Coming from a line of educators, I plan to be an educator myself, and I want to work in the field of special education, showing students who struggle that everyone can learn and succeed.

My culture is generally a very positive influence in the classroom. I have a friendly demeanor, clear rules and no secrets (straightforward communication), a belief that everyone can succeed, and a strong ethic for working together. I learned that through working with a family, but I know that a classroom can become like a family, and thus work together as such. Another way that I think it helps is that although the majority of my cultural artifacts are similar, I am a democrat, and in Utah that has always set me apart and I have been the minority. Just understanding what it means to be the minority has helped me to have a more open mind.

However, my culture is pretty typical, and although I strive to travel around and get to know and understand other cultures, since I have lived in Utah, I have always had a similar culture to the majority. There will always be students in my classroom who have drastically different cultures than mine, and thus far I have only tried to understand them, not to be like them or to communicate with them. For example, family has been everything to me, and I've come from a family who valued education and supported me in everything I do. Not everyone has that blessing, and I fear I will accidentally fall into expecting that my students do have that kind of support when they don't.

Community Experience

Background (for reference):

I went to Discovery Ranch in Mapleton with Ashley Smith. We interviewed and took a guided tour with Craig Smith, the clinical director. Discovery Ranch is a boys ranch for troubled teens age 14-18. There are 54 boys living in homes on site. They go through experiential treatment, which means that treatment is hands-on rather than therapy. The treatment methods include equine therapy, raising calves, ropes courses, learning music, sand tray therapy, and serving in the community. The boys have a variety of issues, including: substance abuse, behavior and family problems, RAD, anxiety and depression, and learning disabilities. They are educated in the afternoon/evening, where they are taught and tutored in the Utah State Core.

Reflection:

NOTE: Throughout this reflection, I will refer to "boys" and use the pronouns "he" and "his." This is because I was at a ranch for boys. They have a girls campus in Cedar City for girls who are struggling with similar things. When I say the above, I mean it to refer to both genders.

The biggest connection to our class I saw was that these boys were struggling because they feel left out of the human conversation. Craig said that one of the problems they see are what they call “enabling parents,” or parents who believe that their child isn’t succeeding, so they do everything (homework, chores, work, etc.) for their children so that they can succeed. The result isn’t a good one; rather, the children feel like they can’t succeed, so they develop what is called “learned helplessness” where they stop working, or participating in the conversation, acting helpless despite their abilities and desire to be a part of the conversation.

Craig gave us suggestions on how to avoid being like an "enabling parent" as teachers. The most helpful thing we can do to help our students like these boys is focus on teaching them self-motivation and really believing that they can do it. If we give up on them, they will never progress. If we nurture them, yet have structure and high expectations, they will meet those expectations. The last thing we want to do is to leave them out of the human conversation; they want to be involved! If they have "enabling parents" we can invite the student to do his homework with us after school, during lunch or in other free time so that he can be the one doing the learning.

We must be patient. Since most of the boys on the ranch have learning disabilities, a consequence is they have a slow processing speed. Although they might not learn or respond as quickly as other students, we as teachers need to let them have time to think. For those in special education, we can work with their special education teacher; however, with the rejection of the deficit model, we learn that just because a child isn't being successful doesn't mean they have deficits. Oftentimes the boys become class clowns and misbehave in class, but that’s only because they don’t want to look dumb in front of their peers for not being able to keep up with the material. By slowing down the way we teach, the boys can keep up and learn along with everyone else. This might mean teaching smaller sections in class or doing more repetitive work, and we must do this as much as the core will allow. If necessary, we can take extra time outside of class to help them succeed.

Something I loved that he said is that “If you meet one of these boys, you’ve met one of them. They’re all different.” It reminded me of the “single story” in that we can’t understand them all just because we understand one. Similarly, we can’t come up with a band-aid solution of how to help them. Each boy needs something special and so they have to work for one-on-one time to figure out what that need is. We can’t just “know” what it is; we have to WORK to find what it is and then WORK to meet that need. There are lots of opportunities to work to find out what their needs are. During group work or free time, spend time with his group and really listen to what he says. Take him aside and ask him about things other than the class. Find out what he's involved in and have a cultural experience trying to participate in those things to better understand him. In time, hopefully, the needs will become clear.

He taught us some classroom management strategies to encourage learning in troubled teens. The first was to use groups a lot. Create these groups based on common interests, or allow the students to group themselves this way, so that they will have a way to work together. (To encourage an inclusive pedagogy, we should be careful. Using interests and NOT race or culture as a separation should be safer.) The support groups they used at the ranch were substance abuse, grief, dialectical behavior therapy, social skills, and adoption. The idea I had is that we can group our students based off of common interests by surveying them to find out what their favorites of various things are. Then when groups need to be assigned, you can group them according to their responses. Even when the common interest isn’t a part of the core or what the project is a about, the group members will be able to find common ground, which enables these troubled students to succeed. Another thing Craig said is that boys work better when they aren’t working in co-ed groups. On the ranch, they have activities that enable the boys to learn proper relationships with girls, but education isn’t one of them. They boys are easily distracted, and by having their group be a boys only group, you can be helping to eliminate distractions. (This is likely case by case.)

The last thing I will point out is the observation that nearly all of the boys I saw appeared to be FAR from troubled. They were happy, well-behaved, involved, and respectful. The things they were doing at the ranch really are working! The boys feel so comfortable there. They know that the staff cares about them, so they respect them and respond to them. I hope that when I have troubled teens like these boys I can model the things I learned at the ranch so that I can see similar responses from the boys in my classroom.

Being the Other

 (artifact 1)

 (artifact 2)

For the assignment, "Being the other," I went to GameStop at the University Mall. I had originally planned to go to Bible study at the Baptist church in Orem, but I was 30 minutes late, so I had to think of another idea. As a result, I was wearing a skirt. I figured this would be a good place for the assignment since I have never really played a video game, and my family never owned a video gaming console while I lived at home. If there's ever anything I don't understand, it's video games. 

Notes taken while hanging out at GameStop:

1. Observation: everyone who shops at GameStop is a boy, or came in with a boy. 

    Interpretation: only boys play and are good at video games.

    Feelings: I felt pretty out of place and very lonely, seeing as I was a girl and didn't have a boy with me. At one point I followed a man around semi closely, hoping that people would associate me with him.

2. Observation: nobody holds eye contact.

    Interpretation: everyone keeps to themselves, doesn't want to talk, or is up to something secret.

    Feelings: I felt so left out! I wanted to ask someone what games were good to play or if they had any recommendations for someone 

3. Observation: everyone is wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

    Interpretation: this is a pretty relaxed environment; it doesn't matter what you look like.

    Feelings: I felt pretty out of place, seeing as I had just come from the baptist church so I was in a skirt... I wanted to change my clothes pretty bad.

4. Observation: there is a ton of information packed into a small space (video games on the wall, things in their ad I picked up at the door (artifact 2), etc.)

    Interpretation: there is a LOT to know in order to be a video gamer.

    Feelings: I will never make it. I can't learn all of this information in any reasonable amount of time. This was the largest factor in me not wanting to pursue a life of video gaming.

5. Observation: loud music or TV show about video gaming playing in the background. 

    Interpretation:we aren't meant to be having conversations; the TV can provide useful information and entertainment.

    Feelings: I actually felt pretty good about this; I knew there was a place to go to learn more and I figured I could round up some conversation starters from this pool of information. Unfortunately, the words they were using were pretty much all foreign to me.

6. Observation: everyone speaks softly; answers to questions were answered short and simply, ending conversation quickly. 

    Interpretation: socializing isn't big in this culture.

    Feelings: I felt pretty awkward, because socializing is HUGE in the culture of me. I don't know how to do really anything without socializing.

 (artifact 3)

I took the picture above to demonstrate what the entire store looked like to me. It was so packed full of games that I didn't know where to start in looking at them or knowing what to do with them. I watched a lot of people as they wandered the store, and everyone one of them seemed to know what they were doing. They all came with other people: some with a friend, some with a small group of friends, and some with a spouse. When they talked, they talked quietly and directly to the people they came with. During my entire visit, including the time when I talked to a man searching through the "New Used Games," lots of people made eye contact with me, but they all quickly looked away. I have rarely felt so alone. The feeling reminded me so much of when I was a missionary; I wanted to talk to people, but there was a paralyzing fear of doing so because I didn't know what to say to relate to the people. 

I couldn't help but think that this must be so hard when you have to do it for more than 30 minutes and you can't just leave when you feel like you've collected enough data. To live with that kind of fear of rejection must be terrible. The whole time I was hoping that an employee would come up and ask me if they could help me find something, and they never did. As a teacher, I need to be that employee. I need to go up to the people who are struggling to fit in and just offer to help. Even though that wouldn't have made me fit in with the gamers all around me, at least I would've had some kind of comfort and relief from the stress and fear of rejection.

Being at GameStop was very uncomfortable for me. Really, this came from the fact that I don't know anything about the culture and couldn't relate with the people there. I know that I need to do more to understand this culture. There will no doubt be plenty of my students who will play video games regularly and I need to understand how to reach them. My husband used to play a lot of video games and can probably help me to understand the gaming world. I also could try playing video games and experience it for myself. By trying to understand the culture of those who play video games better, I might be able to integrate gaming principles into my classroom. Perhaps I could have levels or tracks or something in classroom labs that students who play video games would love.

At one point, I saw some boys playing with a Wii demo console. I noticed that on another TV nearby, there was an X-Box, so I decided to follow their example and give that a try. After handling the controller, pressing buttons, turning it upside down and shaking it a little, I realized that the console wasn't hooked up, but was actually just on display. I was so embarrassed. Here I had been trying so hard to fit in, and finally I saw a way...and it wasn't even a way! Instead it was just a good way to look silly in front of everyone. I tried to act like it never happened, but I know somebody had to have seen. I really just want to help my students know that it's okay to mess up and play the wrong console! Because after the boys were done with the Wii demo game, I decided to give it a try. After a lot of clicking around, I entered a race as Yoshi. I will now brag about my performance:

 (artifact 4)

I got third place in the race! I felt pretty good about myself. I actually did something right, and I did it well! Apparently even the least of us can be successful in an unfamiliar environment. It's pretty interesting that I could be fairly good at the very thing this group was reporting to be good at, but I still didn't fit in.