What does it mean to have a mixed background?
Today in class my group and I were asked to write a post to the discussion board about what we thought it meant to come from a mixed background. We have talked about this idea a lot in class and I have had a lot of time to think about my own personal background. If you would have asked me to think about this concept prior to this class or if someone had asked me, "what is your background?" I would have answered by saying I'm a white American. If someone had asked me if I have a mixed background, I would have answered by saying I do not. However, in just the few short weeks that I have been in this course, I have discovered that there is so much that makes up an individual and now I would answer these questions differently. I would say that I do have a mixed background. I am part of German and Norwegian ancestry. I am a part of the Methodist church, but I have members of my family who are Catholic, Lutheran, and Jewish. I am from Illinois, but I have close family members that live in Norway, California, Texas, Florida, Indiana, New York, Rhode Island, and Minnesota. I would say that I am a heterosexual female. I would say I am a student and a teacher.
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These are all identities that I had not originally thought of myself as, but I have learned that these are things that make me who I am. This is the same idea that we have to think about when we think about who are students are in our classroom. When my group got asked to write about what a mixed background means and how have we discussed this in class, we were able to come up with a vairety of ideas. Having a mixed background means race, ethnicity, religion, economic status, linguistic, sexuality, gender, and geography. All of these ideas tie into making up who each student is an an idnidivudal. We need to rememebrer that as teachers it is our role to learn these things about our students to ensure that we are aware of who they are as a person, but also to ensure that they know who they are as a person as well.
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We have focused on this idea a lot in TCH 207 through different actives and assignments that we have done in class. As I reflect while writing this, I wish that a teacher would have taken the time while I was in middle school and high school to help me figure out my true identity and what makes up my background. I believe that I would have been much more impressed by myself, because honestly I thought that I fit exactly into the little box that is on every form: white, Caucasian, female. However, I know that my identity and my background make me so much more!