Cultural Worth

Normally, when I think about my culture I don’t think about it because I felt that I didn’t have it. My family doesn’t adhere to any of our nationalities’ traditions and customs. I failed to recognize that this as culture because I understood culture as being outside the mainstream. I saw it as something more unique. I didn’t think that the way I lived my life and the way I viewed the world constituted as culture.

Back in high school we had one day a year that we called culture day or something. It was put on by the Spanish department and each classroom had a different cultural aspect of various Spanish speaking countries. They had crafts, food, dancing, and more food. I very specifically remember attempting some of the dances and getting the foot work terribly wrong. It was a fun day because if you had a study hall you could get food and do some crafts. Some kids would also use this as an opportunity to skip class.

This brings me to the thought of various cultures’ places and power within schools. In one an article by Tara J. Yoso, Whose Culture has capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth, she brings up the concept that all cultures have cultural wealth. She then mentions specific kinds of cultural capital: aspirational, familial, social, navigational, resistant, and linguistic. I agree with her article and believe that there many cultural groups and communities have cultural wealth. However, this wealth is not always valued or seen in schools. It seems that the dominate culture often takes precedence.

Just as I experienced, I don’t think that members of the dominate cultural group realize what power their culture holds. It surrounds us so it doesn’t seem different. Then when we only allot a day or a week for other cultures a hierarchy is created. It can send a message to students that are not of that dominate culture that theirs is not valued as much.

Secondly, culture is hard to teach. When I become a teacher, I want my students to have a broad understanding of the world and its cultures. It is hard to do this though because to truly understand a culture one needs to experience it. It is hard to create those kinds of experiences in a classroom.

In my opinion, to break through these difficulties we need to be honest with students. We need to layout the various capital that cultures hold. We need to include that the dominate culture does often hold more mainstream power, but we have to assert the other forms of wealth that other cultures have. We can challenge students to look at their own culture and find what strengths they hold. In regards to infusing other non-dominate cultures in the classroom, we can look to books, media, and art by members of other cultures to teach students. We can reexamine our curriculum and find where the dominate culture is too dominate and where others are lacking. We can even the scale in the classroom and allow all students to see that they have cultural worth.