Culture

Culture is a big topic of concern for any upcoming teacher, or even anyone who wants to work with the general public since the United States is such a diverse country. When reading the assigned articles, I realized that culture is a complex matter of the human spirit. In order for us our human spirit to grow and mold into a complete energy, we must experience not only our own culture, but also the cultures of others. No one culture is above anyone else’s but most time that’s exactly what some people truly believe, and that’s when big conflicts start, no one should ethnocentric. Robert Gibson has a theory which he explains by an iceberg. The theory is basically structured by what is under what on the image are the things about our culture which are there but obviously not seen, and those are the aspects that our influenced by those that we can see above the surface. In better detail, food, music, traditions, etc are all things about a culture that we are aware of because they are made visible. The aspects of the person and their culture which are inside are that person’s/culture’s beliefs, attitudes, values, etc. The things that are instilled in us are commonly the things that make different cultures clash. We commonly tend to think that the same values and beliefs that we have are those of all other people and that also is being ethnocentric, because of beliefs and values aren’t any better or righter than anyone else’s. Cultural transmission is another thing I was familiarized with through the readings. Cultural transmission is the term used for transferring one’s culture, beliefs, values, etc to another person of another culture. This happens with teachers most often as well. Teachers can actually put this in their curriculum purposely in what they call their formal curriculum. But teacher’s most of the time where cultural transmission happens is in the hidden or otherwise informal curriculum which the teacher has. The way that the teacher talks to the students, how the teacher reacts to the children’s behaviors, the teacher’s expectations of her students. All these components are based on that teacher’s beliefs and values and he/she needs to be conscious that his/her ways aren’t the only ways or right way.