Educating the Educator

Filling out questionnaires when it came to applying to colleges was always a bother to me but I knew I had to put the work in to see where I stand academically. While filling out one for SUNY Binghamton they asked if I was a “first gen” student which caught my attention despite this application being my 11th one. More specifically, I had never seen this term in my life so as a curious teen I decided to search it up. After picking up the definition I learned that I was a first gen student due to the fact that my parents did attend a university just not one within the United States. When I wrapped up the application to SUNY Binghamton I spent a great time pondering on what it meant to be a first gen student, leading towards a newer definition of myself.

To be the first in one’s family to graduate from a college or university sets new goals that people tend to look forward to. However, these rewards will always cost something that people can’t give away and most of the time it is their own identity. While 2 months of college have come and gone, I’ve learned a number of concepts in order to hold on to my identity and ideologies. I learned how to express my thoughts in a more lax way instead of being so “professional” and write like a robot. Thus I discovered how to write a bit more authentic. This discovery threw me back to some of my old essays to dissect the robotic way I used to sound since the way one writes should match their voice. Therefore it kind of sheds light on the issue as to why students that specifically come from a first-gen background are vulnerable to the influence of their professors. As a freshman myself I think this happens due to how as a freshman it can be overwhelming when you’re surrounded by people that are so much smarter than you which kind of forces you to want to process knowledge a lot faster to catch up. (Penrose). In early stages of a teen’s life they are told that professors know a lot about the world and are masters at what they teach so it is best to come to an understanding that they are always right and have the answers to any problem, especially when it comes from a new young adult. As young adults that enter college or university we constantly focus on one objective and that’s to pass through their courses the best we can, which means getting on the professors “good side” and almost embed their skills into ourselves. Thus creating a loss of our own identity in exchange for being a master at something we may not be 100% passionate about. This gets to the extreme when it comes to writing papers since it’s where us students really lose our authenticity. To be more specific, when we write papers in college we are expected to be in what people call “perfect English” so the paper can be recognized as professional and get that A+, putting a grin on our faces. While these “stress concerns [include] trying to get good grades, passing tests, dealing with pressures”(Amen, Reglin) it really enforces the level on which how a person writes could affect the way they view themselves. For example, I myself tend to be disappointed in myself when l look at a piece of writing that I know does not satisfy me in the way I want it to. Hence the reason as to why this “perfect English” or “standard English” is detrimental to so many students, primarily first gen students, since they end up losing their original way of talking.

On the other side of the learning spectrum are the professors. Most of us agree that there are some professors out there that tend to not be aware of how the way they teach a class could really affect their student’s identity. In other words professors ignore the fact that the expectation they make, takes away from a student’s authenticity which defeats the purpose of their job. Their objective is to encourage more authenticity and originality in their classes because those concepts lead to new breakthroughs in their specialties. For example an engineering class with diverse ideas leads to better research which then leads development on newer levels. I myself am majoring in Electrical Engineering and so far I’ve met so many different people from different backgrounds and it is almost imminent that my and peers could succumb to being the same person when it comes to our passion. I am simply getting to the point that engineering specifically is a work of art that really needs diversity so if the root fails to embrace its own identity then the potential may not be met. A strong sense of cultural competence must exist for every professor in order to truly set up their students for success. Cultural competence is an ability that allows one to understand effectively with people from different cultures where one is interacting with people from different cultures instead of attending “training”. In order to be proficient in the ability one must interact with different cultures to strengthen the ability(You’re Doing It Wrong: The evolution of cultural competence | Raquel Martin | TEDxRutgersCamden). At UCLA there exists a course that aids both students and professors while aiming to “help them “see” the kids and their community in ways that recognize, respect, and sustain diverse cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds.” (Lind). 

In essence, most professors feel as if they qualify for having a strong sense of cultural competence, they can suspect it based on how their students begin to communicate their words through the etchings on their papers.