Culture is a Key Within the Classroom
As future English teachers, most of us will jump to "bring in inclusive/diverse text". After all, we often look for fictional characters and worlds to grasp to. Being white, I do not have to try very hard. Surely, introducing diverse text is a wonderful idea, but tends to be the "I did it, I checked the culture box". What Zaretta Hammond is getting at goes far deeper than inclusive texts. It's the individual and the sociology that surrounds culture. How does our culture influence us cognitively and socially? According to Hammond, there are three different levels of culture that triggers different emotional charges; surface, shallow, and deep. When we think of culture, we often think of surface, but it is the deep level we should be focusing on. The deep level heavily influences "how the brain makes sense of the world and helps us function in our enviorment" (Hammond 77). As an educator, I have this responsibility to educate my students, but also to con...