Cultural Self-Reflection 1

Cultural Self Reflection

Olivia Murray

Longwood University READ 520

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Part 1:

During my research and reflection during activity 2.1, I found that the cultural group that

I identify the most with is that I’m a female. A time that I was proud to be a female is when I

started noticing all of the strong women taking on strong roles in the world. It took me until my

high school years to realize how amazing and inspiring that was. A time where I felt judged from

my cultural identity was a time where my opinion was belittled because I was told that I was a

female and I wasn’t “qualified to have an opinion on the matter”. The difference between the two

experiences was that I felt inspired and empowered by strong women when I was seeing them

strive in their leadership roles, whereas I felt weak and belittled when my opinion was discarded

because of my identity.

After I reflected on a time where I was proud and a time where I felt judged, I put myself

into the shoes of an English learner. I discovered that I strive off of being inspired by people that

empower me and push me to the best version of myself. I also realized how lucky I am to have

few negative encounters overall with my cultural identity. I realized how my experiences can’t be

compared to those who are English learners. Based off of what I read during chapter 2, I find that

EL students are also empowered by teachers who inspire them and push them to be the best

version of themselves. They thrive best in an environment where teachers are encouraging,

inclusive, and considerate. I’ve also found that my expectations of English learners must be

individually focused as all English learners come from different backgrounds and have different

characteristics that make them unique. I’ve found that things that I find normal in my cultural

identity like making eye contact with people when I talk to them, or being close to someone to

show comfort, may not be the same for every EL student depending on their cultural identity.

Making an effort to understand all students’ cultures will lead to strong connections in the class.
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Part 2:

My reflections that I talked about above have shown me that I have a lot of privilege and

that I haven’t faced a lot of adversities in my life. My goal in my classroom as an educator is to

create the most welcoming and understanding classroom environment as possible. When

working on activity 2.3, I realized how different my expectations can be from EL students’

expectations based off their cultural identity and where they’re from. It’s my job as an educator

to work with students and their families to understand as much as possible about them as a

student and as an individual.

I want to work closely on building connections with families to understand more about

their culture and how I can help them work with the EL student at home. Building connections

with family and showing effort is something that will help create a bridge between home and the

classroom. It also establishes trust and opens doors for more opportunities for the student. I want

to promote and encourage my EL students to share parts of their cultural identity. Show and tell,

celebrating holidays in their culture, and promoting their first language in the classroom by

having bilingual books and labels in the classroom are all ways to make my EL students more

comfortable in the classroom. My personal reflections will motivate me to be as open minded as

possible when working with all of my students. Each student has different needs and it’s

important to get to know your students by asking questions, doing information questionnaires,

and having open discussions to fully create a warm and connected classroom environment. A

piece of my personal reflection showed me that things that I think are completely normal are not

completely normal to every student. It’s important to be an active listener and active learner as an

educator. I need to be able to be educated and aware of all of my students’ cultural identities in

order to fully teach them the content and life skills that they need to know to succeed.
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Work Cited

Fenner, D. S. & Snyder, S. (2017).  Unlocking English Learners' Potential:  Strategies for

Making Content Accessible.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Corwin.ISBN-13: 978-1506352770