Example Of A Cultural Memoir

Before writing my Cultural Memoir, I read chapters one and two of “Creating Welcoming Schools, a Practical Guide to Home-School Partnerships with Diverse Families” by JoBeth Ann. By reading these two chapters, it allowed me to understand the importance of a cultural memoir and the meaning behind it. I asked myself the same questions she asked herself on page 24, “Who am I as a cultural being, and what are the influences in my life that have made me who I am?” (Allen) Within this chapter, she also gave me an excellent definition of culture to base my thinking off of. This definition was given by Geneva Gay where she defined culture as “a dynamic system of social values, cognitive codes, behavioral standards, worldviews, and beliefs used to give

It was my goal to establish the feeling of a family within my classroom, it was a constant reminder that I would say to my students when problems arose. Teaching middle school in a Title One School, I learned that “family” does not have to be the normal definition of family. Many of my students do not come from the perfect definition of family, knowing this I wanted my classroom to be their family. I made a point to make this known not only on the first day of school, but on open house. Open house as a first-year teacher was something I will never forget. I remember some parents walking into my classroom, and you could tell in their eyes that they were shocked I was so young. Being twenty-two teaching middle schoolers is thought to be crazy by some people, but to myself there is nowhere else I would rather

The first story is about two boys named BK and WL. These two boys were in my fourth period this past year. I remember on open house, both boys walked into my room at the same time with their parents and the parents looked at me and said, “You have them together in class, we will be praying for you” and they laughed. The first-year teacher in me got a little nervous! Two boy best friends in class, what a joy! The first day of school, both boys sat down right next to me at lunch and talked to me like they have known me their whole life! I developed a relationship with both of their families through phone calls home and also sitting together at the Middle School football games! One day, I received a phone call from BK mother, inviting me to see BK get baptized. The phone call stopped me in my tracks, for this boy, it was such an important life achievement of getting baptized and he wanted his 7th grade English teacher there. By attending his baptism, I made this connection with not only his family, but the community he was raised in. He was so proud to have his teacher there. In that moment, I remember thinking “This is why I do this, this is what is