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Culture impact on behavior
The role of culture in the development of adolescents
Culture impact on behavior
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In Keeping Close to Home, Bell Hooks writes about her life as a black women navigating the world of ivy league education at Stanford, and how her interactions compared to those of her home life. The author tells of how she can not relate to her other peers as they spoke of their dislike for their parents. She tried to explain to them her beliefs on the importance of parents, but they only wrote her off for not understanding their world. Her peers felt that their parents were obligated to provide their necessities while Hooks felt appreciative of the little her parents could provide though they were not required to do so. After that experience, she closed herself off from the people surrounding her saying, “... I found that classmates believed “lower class” people had no beliefs or values. I was silent in such discussions, disgusted by their ignorance.” Hooks realized that she came from a world filled with distinct beliefs that pushed her to draw away from any interaction because her classmates did not understand her way of life. Have you ever experienced a time where you background has kept you from speaking your mind on a certain issue? Was there a time you tried to explain your thoughts in …show more content…
They can be written down in books, played as a movie, performed on stage, or constructed into a song. Usually, a literacy narrative is about a time when the writer interacted with reading or writing. They can be about a time when someone’s words impacted the writer’s life or how the writer would only pick Clifford books when first learning to read. Nothing is off the table when it comes to creating a literacy narrative. Most of the time, the stories are told from the author’s point of view which allows them to use elements such as exaggeration to keep the reader drawn in. Any author should take their experience and not simply retell what happened. Generally, the narratives are stories from their childhood, but every age has a story to
As Pollock states, “Equity efforts treat all young people as equally and infinitely valuable” (202). This book has made me realize that first and foremost: We must get to know each of our students on a personal level. Every student has been shaped by their own personal life experiences. We must take this into consideration for all situations. In life, I have learned that there is a reason why people act the way that they do. When people seem to have a “chip on their shoulder”, they have usually faced many hardships in life. “The goal of all such questions is deeper learning about real, respected lives: to encourage educators to learn more about (and build on) young people’s experiences in various communities, to consider their own such experiences, to avoid any premature assumptions about a young person’s “cultural practices,” and to consider their own reactions to young people as extremely consequential.” (3995) was also another excerpt from the book that was extremely powerful for me. Everyone wants to be heard and understood. I feel that I owe it to each of my students to know their stories and help them navigate through the hard times. On the other hand, even though a student seems like he/she has it all together, I shouldn’t just assume that they do. I must be sure that these students are receiving the attention and tools needed to succeed,
Although there were numerous efforts to attain full equality between blacks and whites during the Civil Rights Movement, many of them were in vain because of racial distinctions, white oppression, and prejudice. Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi recounts her experiences as a child growing up in Centreville, Mississippi. She describes how growing up in Mississippi in a poor black family changed her views of race and equality, and the events that took place that changed her life forever. She begins her story at the tender age of 4, and describes how her home life changed drastically with the divorce of her parents, the loss of her home, and the constant shuffle from shack to shack as her mother tried to keep food on the table with the meager pay she earned from the numerous, mostly domestic, jobs she took. On most days, life was hard for Anne, and as she got older she struggled to understand why they were living in such poverty when the white people her mother worked for had so many nice things, and could eat more than bread and beans for dinner. It was because of this excessive poverty that Anne had to go into the workforce at such an early age, and learn what it meant to have and hold a job in order to provide her family. Anne learned very young that survival was all about working hard, though she didn’t understand the imbalance between the work she was doing and the compensation she received in return.
In her novel called “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center” one of the many areas bell hooks speaks of is the perpetual racial confinement of oppressed black women. The term double-bind comes to mind when she says “being oppressed means the absence of choices” (hooks 5). The double-bind is “circumstances in which choices are condensed to a few and every choice leads to segregation, fault or denial” Therefore, this essay will discuss how hooks’ definition of oppression demonstrates the double-bind in race relations, forcing the socially underprivileged minority to “never win,” and as a result allowing the privileged dominate “norm” to not experience perpetual segregation.
Lareau, Annette. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011. Print.
Throughout Hughes’ Not Without Laughter, we see the long-term effect of generations of prejudice and abuse against blacks. Over time, this prejudice manifested itself through the development of several social classes within the black community. Hughes’, through the eyes of young Sandy, shows us how the color of one’s skin, the church they attend, the level of education an individual attained, and the type of employment someone could find impacted their standing within the community and dictated the social class they belonged to. Tragically, decades of slavery and abuse resulted in a class system within the black community that was not built around seeking happiness or fulfillment but, equality through gaining the approval of whites.
...r class parents don’t worry, and maybe it’s because they know and understand the value of education that their children will receive, based on the color of their skin and social economic status. They don’t worry because they know that their children are in great hands when it comes to receiving education, and that their children will have first dib’s on whatever their desires are. Now when it comes to people of minority backgrounds, those people in most cases will have to jump through hoops, in order to excel in this game called “life.”
I was late for school, and my father had to walk me in to class so that my teacher would know the reason for my tardiness. My dad opened the door to my classroom, and there was a hush of silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on my father and me. He told the teacher why I was late, gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. As I sat down at my seat, all of my so-called friends called me names and teased me. The students teased me not because I was late, but because my father was black. They were too young to understand. All of this time, they thought that I was white, because I had fare skin like them, therefore I had to be white. Growing up having a white mother and a black father was tough. To some people, being black and white is a contradiction in itself. People thought that I had to be one or the other, but not both. I thought that I was fine the way I was. But like myself, Shelby Steele was stuck in between two opposite forces of his double bind. He was black and middle class, both having significant roles in his life. "Race, he insisted, blurred class distinctions among blacks. If you were black, you were just black and that was that" (Steele 211).
The United States provides our society with the undeniable right to learn. The right to higher education is not limited to the middle and upper classes; it allows the less privileged, minorities, as well as both sexes, to receive an equal education. Two arguments which present interesting views on higher education are bell hook’s “Keeping Close to Home'; and Adrienne Rich’s “What Does a Woman Need to Know?'; Hooks views higher education with a concern for the underprivileged, whereas Rich views it with a concern for women. Of the two works, I personally do not agree with Rich’s argument.
Finding Forrester is a substantial example of a literacy narrative. A literacy narrative allows a writer to express their relationship or feelings about reading and writing. Literacy narratives are written by many people around the world and many writers use this so their readers can get to know them better and their background with reading and writing. Finding Forrester is a narrative about a 16-year-old named Jamal who is a very intelligent boy and a great athlete.
My literacy journey began long before I had actually learned how to read or write. While recently going through baby pictures with my mother, we came across a photo of my father and I book shopping on the Logos boat, a boat that would come to my island every year that was filled with books for our purchasing. Upon looking at this picture, my mother was quite nostalgic and explained how they began my journey to literacy through experiences like this. My earliest memory of experiencing literature was as a small child. My parents would read bedtime stories to me each night before I went to bed. I vividly remember us sitting on the bed together with this big book of “365 bedtime stories for 365 days” and we read one story each day until we had
Desegregation takes a toll on the child’s emotions. The experiences the children go through on a daily basis, It affects the psychological long-term effects the child will be facing later in life. As Dewey explains in his book ,Experience & Education. “Control of individual actions is affected by the whole situation in which individuals are involved, in which they share and of which they are co-operative or interacting parts . For even in a competitive game there is a certain kind of participation, of sharing in a common experience.” (Dewey, Page 53) The children that lived through the hardships of desegregation in the 1950s, all face a common experience. No matter what the race or color the child may
She effectively conveyed this idea by incorporating her personal experience, leaving home to attend Stanford University where the class difference was a prevalent entity. Her parents were uncertain about her attending the university. They were not excited about the fact that she got accepted, they worried about her being so far away from home. A nice, close, unanimously African American college was much more suitable for her in their eyes. “To them, any college would do. I would graduate, become a school teacher, make a decent living and a good marriage. And even though they reluctantly and skeptically supported my educational endeavors, they also subjected them to constant harsh and bitter critique.” (hooks 418) Hooks was afraid to express her shame, she didn’t share the same values as her peers, and she constantly felt distant from the other students. “...I did not share the sensibility and values of my peers. That was important—class was not just about money; it was about values which showed and determined behavior. While I often needed more money, I never needed a new set of beliefs and values.” (hooks 419) After having a conversation with her white middle-class California roommate and reading a book by Carol Stack’s anthropological study, she achieved her occasion for writing. Hooks explained to her roommate the way she was brought up and what was considered “healthy and normal” for
In every writing the author’s point is not always illustrated at first. It’s not until you analyze the passage and understand the author’s purpose or point of view to find the truth behind the words. In the passage“Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class”, the author: Bell Hooks story depicts what her life consisted of, mainly in her college years, what it was like as a colored, minority student in a predominantly white environment. Throughout her college career, Hooks has experienced racism, rejection, and ultimate solitude as her journey to find herself as a minority. However, Hooks remains true to her values and beliefs, and she doesn't let the bitterness and stereotypical world determine her outcome. From my analysis, I noticed through-out this story a person's social class has affected their education, social life, and how they’re respected as a person. Bell Hooks language, structure and background story al support’s one of themes of belonging to a specific social class can cause internal and external conflict.
In her article Touching the Earth, Bell Hooks describes how african americans have been negatively impacted by disconnecting themselves from nature. She begins by describing how even in their darkest times, the early african americans found union and peace in nature. Hooks states that “it has been easy for folks to forget that black people were first and foremost a people of the land, farmers” and that their later migration to the industrialized north has had a heavy impact on their psyche. By removing themselves from the the agrarian south, blacks have “altered [their] relationship to the body.” This has allowed blacks to harbor an unhealthy self loathing for their own race. The author believes that there is a strong connection between the
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.