Response to Bell Hook's Keeping Close to Home

Strong Family Values

In Bell Hooks’s essay, "Keeping Close to Home," she suggests that the American educational system forces students to hide, change, or mask the values that they have when they first enter college. While this might be true for some students, this line of thinking does not hold true for me personally. I do not agree with her assertion for, and I have not changed since entering the University of Georgia. The University of Georgia has not placed any pressure on me to change my values due to the fact that I had very strong values when I entered the University, and those same values hold true to me today.

The values that I learned from my parents as an infant, child, adolescent, and, most recently, as an adult, are continually enforced and taught to me today. It is because of this strong family support that I have stayed the same as I was before entering college. My family has always preached strong family values that will be with me for the rest of my life, and will be passed on to my children and grandchildren. Some of the family values that I have learned from my family are to always respect my elders and to have good manners no matter what.

I believe that values are taught and learned at an early age. If the teaching is successful, as it was in my case, the student should hold true to the values that he or she was raised with. Everybody is raised with different values, whether the difference is religious, moral, or social, and they should all be respected by others. I will not change or alter my values because they are very important to both my family and me, and I firmly believe in them.

There are many different types of people on the University of Georgia campus, whether they come from the same or different background than I. There are people of different skin color, religion, ethnicity, and many other different backgrounds. Therefore, there are also many different beliefs in faith and values. At an institution of higher learning, such as the University of Georgia, there is respect for and interest in other people’s beliefs. There is never a push to "change" someone. Some students might alter their beliefs and values, but as for myself I will learn of others, but never change.