Culture of Self

To me, culture is everything I am, everything I think and everything I feel. It is physical, psychological and emotional. It’s like the old argument of “Nature vs. Nurture” – which has the greatest influence on who we are? The physical element of your culture is like the DNA, the genetic makeup of who you are. I am Caucasian, and a combination of Greek and Turkish Jews on my mother’s side, and Polish and Russian Jews on my father’s side. I am also female and heterosexual. The psychological and emotional elements are my primary discourse, my first “language,” my home culture. I was raised in baby-boomer suburbia in a close-knit two-parent household with two loving parents and two brothers. As children of immigrant parents, my own parents pushed education. College was mandatory, not optional. Religion was more culturally present than formally observed. All of these factors continuously shape my culture and mold me into who I am. It is the eternal tug-of-war.

Who I am naturally shapes how I view the world. Even if I attempt to be objective or nonjudgmental about certain issues or events, which I do, I am always viewing the world through the lens of my culture. It’s not possible to view and interpret outside of your frame of reference. Now, I believe you can train yourself, educate yourself and change yourself, to be different than how you are ingrained by your culture, but I really think your first glimpse, your first impressions and thoughts on everything, are shaped by your culture.

In my culture, what I was born into and how I was brought up, esteem-building was huge. A strong sense of self was a priority in my parents’ handbook for how to bring up baby. The environment in which I grew up molded my sense of self. My brothers and I were raised as individuals who shared a strong cultural connection to religion and “the old country.” My parents had one foot in the old world and one foot in the new, kind of like part Flintstone and part Jetson. They imparted an old-world sense of pride in family, family name and background. My grandmother on my mother’s side lived with us, and we loved and revered her. She was a model hard-working immigrant who came to the new world to build a better life for herself and her family. It was a great example to me of how you need to love, respect and sometimes take care of your parents. That’s the stage I’m at now, helping to take care of my mother.

But on the other hand, my parents were very modern. They were extremely liberal, very involved in local politics, especially my father. For their generation, and the times, they were lefty. My father was a true “women’s libber” who believed in equality for all. I love thinking back to when he cast his vote for Shirley Chisholm in the 1972 presidential primary. As I was going to cast my first vote that November, this was a monumental moment. My father told me, and showed me, that you vote for the person, regardless of race, gender, religion... From this lesson, I took away the idea that nothing is impossible, that the world is filled with promise and I can do anything I set my mind to, as long as I am willing to work for it. I am strong because of the culture of my home.

Because of the emphasis on education in my household, and a sort of drive that was apparently hardwired into my family tree, I grew up believing in the importance of being a lifelong learner. My grandmother came to the new world as a teenager, and went from her factory job to night school, where she learned English and prepped for the citizenship test (which she passed). She was so proud of her accomplishments in this country, and always tried to learn more. At the kitchen table, I had to share my math and spelling lessons with her so that she could learn through me. My mother is a college graduate who flew through the school system and graduated high school at 16, college at 19. My father chose not to go to college, but was very intent, even more so than my mother, on putting his kids through college.

As a teacher I believe we are shaped by our culture but not limited by it. Culture is our lens into the world. I think it’s vital to learn about and honor my students’ individual and unique backgrounds and cultures. There is so much we can learn from each other in the classroom. By making those connections with my students, and letting them see that I have true interest in and respect for their cultural perspectives on the world, I continue to learn and grow. I let them into my world, and am honored to be given a glimpse, if not a long look, into their world. To me, teaching is not only about being an imparter of information. It’s so much more than that. It’s about community-building. I try to build a learning community in which all are welcome and share in the learning process. I am both a teacher and student in my classroom. It’s the only way.