“You’re Polish? Can you say something?” These were the words that filled my childhood by my peers. At a young age my parents signed me up for polish school on Saturdays. Classes consisted of grammar, reading, geography, history and much more about the Polish culture. At the time I didn’t realize that the purpose of going was to expose me to the culture and allow me to stay connected with my roots. Each friday I would try to complete my homework with the help of my parents. I would dread the morning wake up at 7 o’clock each saturday morning, as I thought about my friends who were sleeping in currently. I would sit in class quietly as each student would read from the elementarz, a book used to teach kids the polish language, I wondered about the sole purpose of this class. Was there a reason I had to learn about Frédéric Chopin? Or Casimir Pulaski? As my turn approached I stuttered a little, and then the words soon flew out from my lips into the air without a single hesitation. I sat back down and followed along as the teacher discussed the influential people of Poland. I would sit patiently until the long hand of the clock struck the 12 signifying the end of class. This continued on year after year, until 7th grade. I …show more content…
As I continue to develop who I am and understand my beliefs and Ideals, I have become very open-minded. Everyone has a set of beliefs that are true to them, through this we are able to express the true diversity that we have not only in the United States but all around the world. The best part of this is knowing how many people come from totally different religions or traditions and we are still able to connect and find common grounds that allow us to gain great relationships with many
Barriers can include differing languages, beliefs and customs. In ‘Felicks Skryznecki’ Peter Skryznecki showcases the consequences of migrating to a new country and the effects it has on the persona and his father. When migrating to a country cultural details can be lost between generations of family. As the persona describes his father’s relationship with “his polish friends” Skryznecki utilises positive connotations to show the father’s comfort with them whilst conveying the persona’s distance and unfamiliarity with them. This is demonstrated through his strong use of hyperbolic imagery as the friends and his father “always shook hands too violently” causing another aspect of alienation for the persona as he is unfamiliar with the archetypal polish characteristic. The inversion of the statement “inherited unknowingly” effectively places emphasis on the negative connotations associated with “unknowingly” conveying the persona’s reluctance to belong to his father’s culture. His reluctance is likely from discrimination and lack of acceptance in the society as presented when the “department clerk asked in dancing bear grunts: / ‘Did your father ever attempt to learn English?’” Skryznecki’s demeaning visual imagery and metaphor portrays the treatment as animalistic and primitive showing the closed minded attitude of the clerk clueing to attitudes of the wider society. This comment immediately creates distance between the clerk and the persona and father, symbolising the barriers to belonging brought on by culture. Thus, depending on the attitudes towards different cultures in society a barrier can be created causing shifts in relationships generating a sense of alienation of a person in their physical
The slowly widening generational gap between father and son and between cultures is explored in “Feliks Skrzynecki”. Although full of tender admiration for his father, who spent “Five years of forced labour in Germany”, the poet comments on his father’s strong need to focus only on his pre-war Polish culture, choosing to purposefully exclude himself from main-stream Australian society. Ironically, this caused a growing distance between father and son, as although his father feels he does belong and is content in his exclusion from Australian culture and society, Skrzynecki
One’s connection to a place greatly impacts on their sense of security and belonging. This idea is explored in Skrzynecki’s poems “Feliks Skrzynecki” and “St Patrick’s College”. In “Feliks Skrzynecki” the composer uses the metaphoric representation of the word ‘world’ to convey the thought of
Since the inception of human civilization there have been countless cultures and societies which have helped shape the current world today as we know it. The modern human race dates back more than 200,000 years and in that time frame many cultures have risen to great virtue and success only to deteriorate or cease to exist altogether. First before examining one of these cultures we must know what culture truly means. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Culture Center defines culture as a “dynamic social system,” containing the beliefs, behaviors, values and norms of a “specific organization, group, society or other collectivity” learned, shared, internalized, and changeable by all members of the society (Watson, 2010). In
“The Pianist” by Wladyslaw Spilman is a extraordianry story about a man’s survival in the holocaust in Warsaw, Poland. The book explains how Szpilman survives the holocaust in Poland by hiding, escaping, and with luck. Szpilman is important to society because he explains the following topics in his perspective for them not to happen again, religious discrimination, human rights, and punishment in crimes involving genocide. Many of the issues raised by the holocaust continue to have an impact on the world today.
A typical routine of a fourth grade student in Five Oaks, Michigan shifted immediately when the unfamiliar substitute teacher entered the classroom. Mr. Hibler, the students’ normal teacher, came down with a cough and wasn’t in the classroom for a few days. Inside the school setting is where all the important and developing events throughout the story occurred. The students were used to the typical memorization of facts, predictable subjects, and uneventful classroom teachings. Miss Ferenczi disrupted this normality of the routine of a day the students had. “She said that the Egyptians were the first to discover that dogs, when they are ill, will not drink from rivers, but wait for the rain, and hold their jaws open to catch it.” (Baxter 256) The facts and statements she said to the students engulfed their thoughts. Leading them to be confused, intrigued, and curious to hear more. These were feelings they never expected to feel at school. While, more often than not, Miss Ferenczi was presenting mythical, untrue, or incorrect facts, the students mindsets shifted in the classroom. Boredom no longer invaded the students whenever Miss Ferenczi was speaking. “There was no sound in the classroom, except for Miss Ferenczi’s voice, and Donna DeShano’s
Dr. Cieslicka is Polish and she discusses her culture proudly and she wants to maintain her cultural ties, even if she ultimately
Although many people viewed World War I as a war that consisted of “bloody, pointless warfare,” the Polish people - in Europe and in the United States - viewed the Great War as an opportunity to finally liberate their Old Country. At the start of the First World War, “the old Polish Commonwealth” had been under Russian, Prussian, and Austrian partitions for more than one hundred years. Under the control of these powers, the Polish country vanished off of the European map and the Polish people were greatly mistreated. The country of the Polish people only existed in their imaginations, as “a political fantasy of the past.” Fortunately, the dream of liberating Poland became something that the Poles greatly strived for during the Great War. The Polish immigrants in the United States, especially those in Chicago, did everything they could in order to help the Polish cause.
In the story about Edna Pontellier a major theme is her omitted self discovery. In the story we can see how Chopin uses style, tone and content to make the reader understand how it was for a person challenging many of the beliefs of the society at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Therefore, my Polish culture plays a big part of my life. Through my culture, I have had a social role of being a student at Polish school every Saturday. With the assistance of the teacher and my classmates, I have been given a social script of learning about my Polish culture - history and literature - along with its geography and grammar. For twelve years, I excelled as a student because I learned and became proficient in the Polish language. Through the experience of learning about my Polish ethnicity - my self-identity - I was able to complete matura, a high school exit exam, and most importantly, speak to my family members in
The best word to describe me would be open-minded. the literal definition of open-minded is the willingness to consider new ideas. Being open-minded to me means being able to see from someone else’s perspective while still having your own. I’d say i’m a pretty open-minded person, but like everyone else, I do have my own set of opinions and beliefs that i’d find near impossible to stray from. At a very young age most of us gather up our own set of values and beliefs. As we grow older the set of values and beliefs grow larger and we tend to surround ourselves with people that share the same set of interests. Therefor, it can be extremely difficult to remain open-minded when you're faced with ideas that challenge your own set of beliefs. Anytime
Growing up I always had the opportunity to interact with diverse groups. My father is a retired master sergeant of the United States Army. He is African-American and was born and raised Baptist in Kentucky. He married my mother who is South Korean and Buddhist. I spent the first three years of my life living in South Korea where my father was stationed. We
Tomella that is a great observation. I have dreamed of sitting leaders of different churches down at a table to discuss the bible in an intelligent way. You are correct so far because I have yet to see one person get offended on the topic of religion. I feel as though an open mind will definitely help you excel in academics because you are showing that you are open to new concepts academically as well as spiritually. If not then you have grown enough to respect other peoples beliefs without offending
Chopin’s short and simple tale with “oppose tradition” writing allows the reader to view the darken side of the 19th century society. Her short story “The unexpected” clearly indicates her story theme “nature of attraction” and “ Woman’s relationship to men” at that time, as woman that time are most likely to depend on men as a financial and physical security.
Szymborska’s poem, “Brueghel’s Two Monkeys,” starts in an odd way. The reader is thrust straight into the scene of an exam, which at first seems all too familiar. However, Szymborska surprises the reader when the voice says what she dreams about as she takes the final exam, “two monkeys, chained to the floor.” This is a very odd image and one that is not easily identifiable to the reader initially. The poem contains two meanings, first in the context of the 1956 workers' riots and student demonstrations that led to the crisis and compromise of October where Poland was taken over by Stalin. These events provide a context for the reading of the poem as a