My Family Culture

Imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

• A description of the three items you would choose
• A photo album containing pictures of hobbies, experiences, and monumental events in the life of my family.
• A ball to represent our love of the outdoors and of the games we play together as a family
• A MP3 player containing the songs that we sing together as a family and hold special meaning in our family and remind us of special events.
• How you would explain to others what each of these items means to you
• Each of the items holds a special place in the hearts of my family because they bring memories that remind us of our importance in each others lives.  The memories allow our family to share memories and experiences that would provide others with a glimpse of what our family culture looks and sounds like.
• Your feelings if, upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and have to give up the other two items you brought with you
• I would definitely keep the photo album, the pictures provide ourselves and others with real pictures of what our family culture looks like from birthday parties to backyard fun to vacations and camping trips. 
• Any insights you gained about yourself, your family culture, diversity, and/or cultural differences in general, as a result of this exercise
• It's difficult to describe culture within a family.  Culture is complex and encompasses many aspects of every day life.  I had trouble at first thinking of activities that represent my family culture, but after some thought I realized that family culture is not the way we dress or the holidays we celebrate.  Family culture  is eating dinner together every night, reading stories before bed, playing basketball in the driveway, and the morning rush to get to work and daycare.  Family culture is different for every family, there may be similarities but all families are different.  As educators it is imperative to recognize and embrace the differences we see in families.