Personal Artifacts

Former BYU quarterback McMahon's retired jersey-towel that was given to all students who went to the USU game

My school backpack

The front room of my apartment has twinkle lights

My food cupboard

The books on my desk, which all revolve around history and poli sci

This is from my freshman year when my roommates and I made a Potter Puppet Pals video

Jack-o-lanterns outside my building

My car and my roommate's boyfriend who decided to get in the picture

Halloween decorations on our door

My and my roommate's DVD collection

An apron I bought when I interned in Scotland

A picture on my wall

A Chinese calendar I got on my mission

A giant print on my kitchen wall that represents me and my roommates' friendship

My ukulele

My laptop

Pictures on my wall

Wedding announcements

When the Ron Weasley cardboard cutout wears a BYU t-shirt, we win games

Art I got in my international travels

In looking at my artifacts, I notice that school and collegiates are a big part of my personal culture. My love for school sports and books, etc, will aid me as a teacher to get me more involved in whatever school culture I am in, which is a culture I will hopefully share with my students. I also have a lot of items consistent with Mormon culture, such as pictures of the temple and the sacred grove that you have to be mormon to really understand. This could cause a cultural barrier of understanding if I teach out of Utah, or if I teach in Utah, I could dangerously assume every one of my students has this same culture at the risk of excluding some. I have a bit of international flavor in my culture due to 2 years of living abroad in different places, which in some cases will help me to know how to learn about my students' culture, but could create a barrier of understanding where I assume they understand how other cultures could vary, when they may have very little experience with other cultures. I additionally have several artifacts consistent with American culture in general, such as halloween decorations, food choices, car, movies, etc that is probably similar to many students' cultural background, but different from some which could just lead to not being on the same page as some students.

Community Experience

For my community experience, I went to the Food and Care Coalition and worked in the food line serving dinner to impoverished and homeless individuals. I realized that I expected to see lots of dirty, unkempt people in dirty, worn, poorly-fitting clothes. I was surprised to find mostly the contrary. Most of the people there, while perhaps not dressed especially nice, could fit in in many places. They were not all older either--there were some young families, and a wide range of ages there. Additionally, there were few to no people with facial hair. I realized that most of my pre-conceived notions about homeless people were wrong. Perhaps part of the reason is because the Food and Care Coalition offers so many services to the homeless that they perhaps are able to function better in society. Or perhaps many homeless people have the cultural capital to be able to fit in and conceal their homeless state.  However, it made me realize that I could have extremely poor students in my classes and not even realize it, because they blend in so well with everyone else.

Additionally, I was surprised with how happy everyone seemed at the Food and Care Coalition. Even though the people there must deal with a lot of stress from poverty and homelessness, they were happy while they were there and genuinely grateful for our service. I was also impressed at how much the community does for the Food and Care Coalition--I realized that privately-owned places can take care of the poor quite well if the community is willing to help. It might make a good assignment for high schoolers to volunteer somewhere like that to learn more about their community and their civic duty within it. It would help students break down prejudices and gain love and understanding for the less fortunate in their community.

Being "The Other"

For this assignment, I went to a Consulting Fair in the business school, somewhere where I feel completely out of place. I didn't like being the other--being there made me feel uncomfortable and awkward. Everyone around me felt like they were trying to show everyone how competent they were and how comfortable they were there with high-profile consulting companies, and it made me feel kind of small and unimportant for being in a job I imagine future wealthy people would look down on. Even if that's not what they think, that's what it felt like they would think, since it's not as prestigious to be a teacher as it is to be a consultant. My instinctual response to being the other was to remain quiet with my head down, to not talk to people and just eat my BYU mint brownie in peace, which took forcing myself to suck it up in order to get over. However, I felt like I was wasting the time of the people there by talking to them because even if they want me to be a consultant, I don't think I really want to be a consultant. My second gut response was to slightly judge everyone around me for putting so much importance on something I don't find very valuable, especially because no matter how many times someone explains to me what consulting is, a part of me still doesn't believe it could be a real job, nor understands why they get paid so much to do what they do. I know that's bad and I got over those feelings quickly, but it is kind of a natural defensive reaction.

It gave me insight on what a student in my class might feel like if he (or she) thinks he's the other. They might stay quiet and out of sight as much as possible, and even slightly judgmental of all the people around them for being the way they are, or putting so much value on grades, for example, when they may not see it as being that important. It also made me realize that it might take a lot of work for me to help these students get on board with objectives and just the whole school thing in general if it is not something they see as valuable or relevant. I could get interested in consulting, but it would take a lot of time around people who love consulting and a lot of persuasion for me to be willing to try to go for it. This might be the same for these students. They might really just not see the point of turning in a worksheet or paper or taking a test, etc, if that is something their family and friends or cultural group does not emphasize. Though perhaps I might be a bit more trained in the culture of business in general since my dad is in business, I was still a bit lost sometimes, and wondered what the people from the consulting companies would even want to see. Similarly, if the students are not trained in the culture of school, it might be difficult for them to participate in school culture successfully. Although teachers say all they really want is student learning, there are a lot of smaller things they want from their students on a regular basis (sitting in seat, raising your hand in class, wanting learning more than just completion, etc) that a student unfamiliar with teacher/school culture could struggle to understand. Doing this assignment made me realize there are a lot of cultural and social cues that I take for granted that may not be easily understood by those in different cultures  with different traditions.