Personal Narrative: Who I Am Today

In the past twenty years I have experienced different aspects of life that have shaped me into who I am today. I have had personal experiences, moments with friends, and indirect encounters. Each story explained below goes into detail of what occurred how it has shaped me into the student I am and future teacher I am becoming. Experiences throughout life affect the way we teach and the opinions that we can potentially transfer over to our future students.
I went to a diverse high school with a decent amount of cultural backgrounds present. There was a great divide though between the African Americans and the white people. The stereotype was that the white people were smarter and in higher level classes while the African Americans were in lower classes and

were “ghetto”.

I had a friend Trey who was a massive football player that towered over me. We had been friends since middle school where we met in band. Trey is African American but that never stopped us from being good friends. Second semester of freshman year I went to lunch anxious of finding people to sit with. I walked into the lunch room and immediately spotted Trey because he was not hard to miss. I asked Trey if I could sit with him and he said yes. As we sat down and others started to find their place in the lunch room, our table filled with boys just like Trey. By the end of lunch, I was surrounded by six large African American boys just like Trey. I was the outcast yet again in a school where I had always felt normal. Everyday was a new experience when I sat with these boys. I had experienced a new culture that I had never experienced in all of the years I was friends with Trey. They talked differently using phrases and words that

I had know understanding of. They gave me are hard time for being the only white girl and even said that people would think badly of me. They insinuated that others would think I was no longer innocent because I sat with them. I continued to sit there none the less because Trey was my friend and I wanted to hangout with them. By the end of the semester, the boys tolerated me and I enjoyed getting to know a different part of my school than what I was used to.
These experience are important to analyze because it shows who I am. It is also important to look forward to the future and see what similar events will have impact on my future. This also shows that it does not matter the age that an event happens, cultural diversity or the lack of it is a key aspect of our lives. I lacked cultural diversity in certain areas in my first twenty years of life but am looking forward to expanding this diversity in the rest of my years.