Chapter 2

I found chapter 2 to be very informative. When I hear the word "culture", it catches my attention and makes me curious of what its about. I learned that there are two kinds of culture. The first one is called surface culture which, to me, has to do with the outer appearance. When one bumps into someone who is wearing boots, a charro suit, and a sombrero right away thinks, "Oh! He's from Mexico". People judge from what the eye sees on the outside like how they dress, what they eat, and the type of house they live in. A true exploration of culture refers to deep culture. This consists of characteristics, values, and beliefs. These are not so apparent and it is important to get to know and understand our students. I will be aware of all this now and as a teacher I will let my students express themselves and let them draw their cultural background and show us how special and unique they are. School culture was an important topic we talked about in class. We have a variety of cultures that meet at a school that is only singled down to one kind of culture. Here in America, we follow a schedule for the beginning and the ending of the school day. We are divided by grade-level classes and have certain instructional practices as well as discipline. I've heard that in some other countries, children work by day and go to school at night. I bet that it can tough for foreign exchange students to get adjusted to our customs. It can make them feel out of place. This also leads to mismatched cultures causing serious issues in schools. The school is like a big pot of multi-cultures mixed in, but the school wants to keep it just one flavor. This chapter has been very helpful in breaking the ice in a classroom. There's a section that talks about cutural responsive model and it is a good tool and shows us how to make the students feel comfortable and valued.