Culture and Community

The is no doubt that one’s race, class, gender, sexuality, language, and religion play an important role in defining one’s culture. In fact, it seems to me that they are, once one’s nationality and country of upbringing is taken into account, the defining aspects of what culture is. I grew up in a small, almost predominantly white mining town in South Wales, struggling with the closure of the coat pits during the Thatcher years. There was a decidedly insular working class mindset. Being the 1980s and 90s, religion was in decline but the role of the Anglican Church in my upbringing was important – even if I took nothing in and considered myself agnostic, church was still a weekly event and, as such, played a part in making a sense of guilt one of the main things that motivates me in life.

I am thankful for incredibly liberal parents, but coming from this kind of culture, there is no doubt it affected my views of race, gender and sexuality, among other things. During my entire pre-college academic career I encountered very few people who were not white. There was one black student in my high school for the whole time I was there, only two Asian students (and they were brothers) and a few Indian or Pakistani students. Going to a partially church-funded state school (having a state religion in Britain means that these kinds of schools are common place) I only encountered people of the same religious background, apart from one Muslim girl whose parents had petitioned the board of governors for her placement because of the school’s excellent reputation. Her faith was never an issue as I never really considered the relevance of anything other than Anglicanism until the final years of high school in which I really started to question religion as a whole.

College ultimately made me a lot more open-minded. Finally I was able to at least try to break free of the Valleys culture that had dominated the first 18 years of my life. I met people of different races, religions and sexualities and made close friends. Perhaps it was in spite of the culture I was brought up in; perhaps it was an indicator that one makes one’s own culture through continual experience. Culture, then, is something that is always shifting to accommodate changes that you encounter. Those that don’t experience that kind of alteration are the bigots and those resistant to change.

In what ways has my culture shaped how I view myself? Even before I came to the United States I viewed myself as an outsider. Whether because I was more of a “book-learning type” in a masculine environment of rugby and soccer; or because, for the longest time, I was happier with my head in a comic book or listening to heavy metal than looking for girls. Living in a more multi-cultural part of the world, my own background cannot help but make me feel guilty every step of the way. Am I saying the right thing to people who are different? What if I offend someone unknowingly? It often seems as though my culture has given me a magnified sense of liberal guilt now that I am now longer surrounded purely by white, working and lower-middle class Anglicans.

Seeing these people struggle through the post-Thatcher years, and suffering bullying at the hands of those trapped by poverty inspired by decades of only knowing one kind of work – a kind that had now been taken away, I knew that I had to get out and to succeed. Subconsciously at the time, this inspired me as a learner. I would watch American television shows and movies and knew that was where I wanted to be and the way to do it would be to succeed academically. It was in rebellion against my culture that I embraced education. I was never interested in practical things like math and science but literature and history always fascinated me – especially if it was American. It seemed to be the opposite of the insular Valleys culture I knew so well and getting there inspired me to do well as a learner.

Of course, now I have made it I have no doubt that my past, the culture that has defined me all these years, will play a large role in how I run a classroom. While my college years expanded my worldview, that all-white upbringing I received earlier in my life may make it harder to connect with students of a different race. Experience will no doubt prove that these worries are futile. Nevertheless, I will bring a unique perspective to an American classroom. My being a cultural outsider will allow me to relate to immigrants and the children of immigrants – while our cultures may differ we will both be sharing similar experiences that can be brought into the classroom. I will be able to use my own cultural background to open up white, American-born students to the wider world, showing that even someone of the same race who speaks the same language can be very different. My culture could act as a lens through which I, as a teacher, will be able to guide my students through their education in a unique way.