The Importance Of Student Identity

As a teacher, it is important to know and understand the racial and cultural identities of both yourself, and your students. Knowing about your students’ backgrounds is a great way to make the classroom a safe and welcoming environment. Not all educational settings emit a feeling of safety to its students, and that needs to be changed. In this paper, I will discuss how my racial and cultural identity may be the same and may differ from my students, as well as some ways in which the institution of education can be changed to be more racially and culturally inclusive.

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

Currently, general education classrooms have increasingly become diverse with both disable students and students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. In order for educators to ensure that they effectively teach these classrooms, meet the needs of each student both successfully and individually, effective research that is based on strategies need to be implemented. The U.S. Department of Education suggest that, the current school-age population is becoming more diverse as time passes, yet, majority of the teachers in these schools are white non-Hispanic women. According to another report by The Condition of Education in 2006, American schools are portraying increased diversity and growth. The report suggested that, forty two percent of students in public schools were ethnic or racial minorities in the year 2003; this increased from twenty two percent since 1972. Owing to these reasons, teachers in these schools are expected to educate a diversified class of students including those that come from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Teachers are therefore, required to implement a number of key strategies that will ensure that every student in specific classroom feels that he or she belongs there (Worrell, 2010).

In the United States, each and every day, more minority children are born than white children. Fewer and fewer white parents are giving birth to multiple children, while many minority parents from African-American cultures to Hispanic cultures are continuing to have the same number of children, and possibly more. With all these minority children entering the U.S. education system, there is a problem current minority students are facing; there is a shortage of minority teachers. While there are minority teachers in the workforce, when Richard Ingersoll and Henry May, in their report: "The Minority Teacher Shortage: Fact or Fable?", looked at the data in 2011, they found that there is not a shortage in terms of number of teachers, but a shortage of minority teachers in the places that need them most: inner-city schools, with high minority populations. Minority students assimilate better with a teacher of the same ethnic background and the contrary view of this was highlighted in a 2012 skit by Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key. The duo did a skit of an inner-city black substitute teacher inside of a middle class, almost all white classroom. Using his current cultural capital (defined as: “…the general cultural background, knowledge, disposition, and skills that are passed on from one generation to another,” (McLaren, 80,) the teacher, Mr. Garvey, acts as a disciplinarian. He takes attendance and when a student corrects his inner-city pronunciation (i.e. says “Jay-quellin”

Her essay is aimed at Middle Americans or other immigrants living in the country who face the same issue as her. Having a name that is uncommon and hard to pronounce, can be a challenge for the peers of those with the names. The claim is not being made toward the easy to pronounce Bill’s, Susan’s, and Richard’s. The claim is also not aimed at professionals or people of

Teaching in racially diverse classrooms often leaves educators feeling uncertain about how to proceed and how to respond to historically marginalized students. There is pressure to acknowledge and accept students of color with different perspectives, to diversify the syllabi, be more aware of classroom dynamics, and pay attention to how students of color experience the learning process.

My name is Alyssa Nguyen and I am a professor at Texas State University. I like to define myself by the things that I love and what I have accomplished in life. Unfortunately, others define me by my accent. It is difficult living in America with English as my second language (Question 1). When people sign up for classes, they avoid Asian-sounding last names. On websites such as Rate My Professor, students rate “American” last names 80 percent higher on clarity than Asian professors (Jaschik, 2015). I have worked very hard to learn English and am proud of how I have prospered. Having English as a second language has given me many opportunities in adapting to other cultures, participating in intercultural communication and overcoming diverse stereotypes (Thesis Statement).

Going through middle school is no easy task for the ordinary teenager however when there are some very obvious differences between you and your classmates the process is even harder. This is exactly what Stefana had to deal with while in seventh/eight grade. Her classmates had easy to pronounce American names while Stefana was constantly being asked to stand up, pronounce her name, spell it and then would have her name be pronounced incorrectly by a handful of her teachers. This may not seem like a big deal but it gave Stefana a deep feeling of alienation from her American classmates. Since her name was difficult for her teachers and classmates to pronounce it led to shortened, unappealing nicknames such as “Staff” and “Petrify.” What made this even worse is that with a foreign name like “Stefana Peitrofesso” her classmates would be able to easily identify her foreign heritage which had a direct correlation to the low income job that her parents most likely had. Having a foreign name meant that you were easily identifiable as not as affluent because during this time period the parents of immigrants didn’t have as good jobs as the general population. All of this information was made available simply by someones first and last name because of

At birth everyone is given a name by their parents. Your name is part of your identity and how you are addressed and recognized by the world. The different verities among the population created other names given to different races. These names are offensive, demeaning and are only used to refer to a person in a disrespectful manner. They can also cause a segregation among a nations people, these names are forced upon people weather they are rich or poor, old or young, male or female and are used to describe the same race of people. In the class reading "What 's in a Name? “by Henry Louis Gates he reminisces about a personal experience of his that he had with his father. In the story he describes his father was a hard worker and, because of this he was in high financial standings and, he was well respected and given privileges that at the time was rare for people of his race but he was still black and his name, his individual identity was not important instead he was given a racial identity, this is the only thing he was known as, this type of negative recognition is something many black Americans can relate to. One’s race is a predominant part of our identity and is what causes discrimination.

Brown Deer School District is located in the village of Brown Deer, five minutes north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The village population is about twelve thousand and the schools in the district roughly count about one hundred and twenty-five students per grade. The school district is smaller that district in the area but sustains a pretty diverse school. When I graduated my senior year, there was about fifty percent Black, forty percent White, and ten percent Asian and HIspanic. The problems at the schools were not necessarily racism but the “name” game. The name game is when popularity is determined by your last name and what your parents or siblings have done in the community. If your parents, or siblings, were a standout popular student or your parents are well known in the community, you were probably one of the popular people in your grade. The only way to overcome the name game is to make a name for yourself. You have to personally work harder than others to make yourself standout from other people. In regarding to the last name popularity in my case, I was the oldest child out of my family. My family moved into Brown Deer when I was one. So my parents were not as popular as other families in the community. To begin my time at Brown Deer, I had a speech problem where I was thinking to fast and could not form any words to speak. This speech impediment resulted in me starting schooling in special education. Eventually I was able to figure out how to speak well and was

I know it can be difficult to pronounce unfamiliar names correctly, but one thing I have never been able to wrap my mind around is why 90% of teachers and substitutes, when taking attendance, completely butcher a simple last name that sounds exactly as it is spelled. It has gotten to the point where my close friends habitually point out the instructor’s error more than I do myself. The first occasion where a teacher takes role call for the hour calls out, “Kelsey Pahsler?” Without hesitation, I raise my hand in response and mumble under my breath, “It’s actually Postler, similar to that of a bedpost” for seemingly the thousandth time. My full name is Kelsey Marie Postler, but often times my friends and family refer to me as just Kels. Over the course of 17 years, I have come to love both my name and nickname and consider them to be very well-fitting to my personality and background.

I agree with Lam’s idea because I also had the same experience. When I first went to high school in Tucson, AZ, my teacher took a lot of time to practice on pronounce my first and last name in Vietnam. On the first few days, he still cannot speak it right, and he continued to learn it until he got them perfect. In the same way, when I went to the College of Marin (CoM), I saw that professors at the college tried to learn the names of new students. Therefore, I agreed with Lam that teacher tried to get to know better about their students. Moreover, Americans just do and follow what they really love to be. I agree with Lam’s idea. At weekend, I work for a Nail Salon in San Mateo for financial support. When I told some of my customers about what I am studying, they always say that I should follow my dream and study on whatever I want to study. Also, they treat the same with their children. They support their children to follow their goal. Overall, I agree that saying names correctly keeps a close relationship between teachers and students. In addition, passion is always the criteria that most American teenagers choose to follow for their future career. Although I do not get much support from my parent about choosing art as a major, I believe that if I can make a lot of effort for

Identity is a socially and historically constructed concept. An individual learns about their own identity through interactions with family, peers, organizations, media, and educational institutions. Education and identity are two closely related topics. On average, most Americans will spend a fourth of their life in educational institutions. During this time period students are growing and maturing, but most importantly they are discovering themselves. Students realize their qualities, determine their morals, and establish their beliefs during this time of instruction. Undoubtedly, education forms and challenges a person’s identity throughout the years.

Education is one of the most important factors in every person’s life regardless of where they’re from, their race, or their culture. Becoming educated not only makes life easier for us but also can help people become more successful in all things. However with so many people of various races, ethnicities and backgrounds in the United States it is difficult to create an education system that attends to each student’s individual culture. Ones own culture influences their actions and lifestyle, therefore this can create conflict if it is different from their schools cultural teaching style. Multicultural and multilingual classrooms have become the norm in many educational and professional settings throughout the U.S. because of changing immigration patterns caused by globalization (Institute for Educational Leadership, p. 2). For teachers today, it is essential to understand the role of culture and have the ability to interact interculturally in the classroom to create an effective learning environment. Analyzing cultural issues or differences can help teachers to understand some of the unconscious processes that shape individuals’ actions and interactions, as well as their language use and communication. “Teachers who understand cultural diversity…are more likely to be successful in their multicultural classrooms” (Samovar, Pg.2).

“Some…memberships are more salient than others; and some may vary in salience in time and as a function of a variety of social situations” (Tajfel, 2-3) Salience of identity, in the way that we need to understand it in the case of perception and decision making, can be operationalized as the likelihood that a particular identity will be invoked within a certain situation that the individual is being faced with (Hogg, Terry, & White, 257). As mentioned previously, everyone holds various identities but salience is the process through which we subconsciously decide which we be used to base our decision making or preferences on. “The salience of a particular social identity for an individual may vary from situation to situation and indeed from