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Michele Robb September 13, 2013 EDUC-3V217 Assignment #2

To reflect on my perspectives in education, I would need to first reflect on my own cultural beliefs and how I came to them. I grew up in rural Indiana, mostly white and Christian. My parents are younger being in their 20s during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. I grew up listening to The Beatles and Steppenwolf but also Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan. A lot of my friends told me I had cool parents. I can now see that cool meant different. We didnt attend church. Thats not to say we werent Christian. My parents allowed me to attend any church I wanted if a friend invited me. However, my parents insisted that by belonging to a particular church, I would be biased towards that religion and they wanted me to make my own decisions about religion. For our little community, that was also different. I left for college having met only two African Americans and no non-Christian based religions in my lifetime. The most diverse family I knew was a Mormon family down the street. I arrived to a large university and for the first time, met cultures I had never known existed. I had a part time job in the university preschool. About one-third of the students did not speak English. One little girl followed me around a lot. She kept calling me the same thing but no one knew what it was. Her mother explained one day that she was calling me teacher. I thought that was cool! I met a Jewish family and became their nanny. They introduced me to yet another incredibly different world than the one I grew up in. Hearing them speak Hebrew at home and English in public was so interesting. I loved how open they were to my questions. But their respect for my own culture was my first real taste of diversity and multiculturalism.

They always included me and my husband on all of their holiday celebrations. However, they also always not only acknowledged my beliefs in Christian holidays, they celebrated with us. That has altered my belief system that respect does not have to mean conform, only celebrate others for themselves. Fast forward to the early 2000s. I am the mother of three children. Again, we were considered rather progressive for our little town (same one I grew up in). However, the call for diversity still came as two of my children have disabilities. Finding respect, empathy and a little patience was hard. Going to church (yes, we attempted it) only to have to leave because my youngest couldnt handle the stimulation of the nursery was frustrating. If we stopped going, we would eventually have a group of members show up at our doorstep to inquire why we hadnt been attending. What they couldnt understand was that our lives, our culture, was different. To feel separated from our community was hard. Sure, there were pockets of acceptance, but we knew that to belong, we would have to go where diversity was celebrated, not feared. We are now in Sacramento. As Ive stated in several discussion posts, diversity is huge in the schools my children attend, not only in race, but religion, language and ability. My children have friends that speak other languages at home. They are experiencing new and different cultures on a daily basis. The best part, my childrens own differences are also accepted and celebrated. My perspectives in the classroom have also changed. Working with students that are so varied has caused me to have to stretch from my own comfort level. I must learn new things daily just to keep up with the demands of the classroom. I believe I dont necessarily teach diversity. I would rather say I teach respect and acceptance. I believe we are all different and all the same. Teaching my students this is, I believe, vital to my ultimate success as a teacher. That is not the same as their ultimate success. On the contrary, although

difficult, there could be students that in an environment centered on a single culture, still grow and succeed in the global market. I cant however, allow myself to be complacent in thinking all students can do that. If I am to truly prepare them for the future, I have to help them understand that the world is constantly changing and we must also change or fall behind. As a married, Caucasian, English speaking woman, I cannot and will not be able to say I understand how it feels to be educated in a culture different from my own. My small experience in a town that had difficulty accepting one of their own due to a disability gives me only the slightest insight in how this must feel. However, I also believe that due to my foundational upbringing by my family, I was already primed to walk a path of wanting diversity and multicultural experiences. I will continue keeping my mind open and my curiosity peaked, as I did in college, as a model to my students on how we can learn from each other and be better for it.

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