Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Memories
There were so many things about Grimm's anecdotes that reminded me of my own experience as a working-class student, not the least of which was not realizing I was working class until I arrived on campus. Well, maybe I had a hint of it since I worked for a year prior to that in a brokerage firm and had my share of culture shock about how the other half lives. If I hadn't seen that, I doubt it would have seriously occurred to me to try to go away to college (and that alone was a huge feat that only my determination in the face of ignorance made possible). I loved to read and write, though, so Standard English was not too much of issue; I had a good grasp of the written language. Unfortunately, there were those words I didn't know how to pronounce, and my accent was different in ways I never noticed until I wasn't living in my home neighborhood anymore. People were always kind enough to point it out (well, not everyone was kind about it). I definitely felt I had to learn how to "pass" in this world that was so unfamiliar to me, although I was surprised it was so different. It caused strained relationships with family and friends back home, too, but at the time I didn't fully understand why or that other students might be going through the same thing. When Grimm talks about being uncomfortable in certain social situations, she has me pegged at that age.
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2 comments:
I suspect that this will be the experience of almost everyone in the class, in that we all bring our own cultural constructions and expectations to the academy. For my part, I could relate to both Joe, as someone who played the game and won a good grade by concealing part of his cultural identity, and Rebecca, who was aware of the cultural gap between many of her fellow students and her own experience. I also relate to Grimm, whose oral language evidently differs/differed from her written language. My main consideration after reading the first part of Grimm is how my own construction of what the academy expected/expects of me influences my choices. Rather than reacting to a definition of literacy that was forced upon me, I contemplate my part in accepting rather than challenging that definition. This is a more productive perspective for me, since I have a better chance of challenging my own thought processes than changing the literacy expectations of my culture. Or maybe challenging my own assumptions is the only way to begin change in the culture.
The story about Joe and his experience in raising mink and the writings of "authorities" who had not experienced being on the job could have been a really good position paper. I was concerned that the professor thought that his voice wouldn't have been appropriate in the conversation. Aren't writing instructors wanting students to enter the conversations? Last semester one of my students wrote an essay that questioned that substituting ethenol for gasoline would actually help the economy because the cost of products such as meat and milk skyrocket because feed for cattle rose: supply and demand of corn products. While he used sources, his voice added so much more to the conversation.
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