ssaludades's blog

When I was brainstorming ideas to right about for my essay, initially, I had been intending to write about how class affects a person’s access to education. The amount of money and cultural capital a person possesses determines how easily resources are available to him/her and the quality of the resources available; however, when reflecting and comparing between Tompkins’s, Yezierska’s and Rodriguez’s educations and their consequences, I found that that amount of resources a person has access to does not determine the level of satisfaction a student will walk away with once higher education is attained. What unfolded was that individuals have a choice in what they get out of their education by means of the different ways in which they choose to utilize their resources at hand to gain what they want and develop into who they are. Thus, education was really the vehicle in which people find themselves - discover their passions and potentials.

While I was writing my educational autobiography, I was surprised at how hard it was for me to focus on one aspect of my education, as if my education was an accumulated product of my experiences and interactions with different people - my family, friends and classmates. In this sense, I began to view education as a shared experience that these people were participants in my development as a person and helped me find my place and role in society.

Nonetheless, I was likewise disturbed by and reminded of how deeply class relations and more specifically, the status of my classmates affected this role. For many, a big part of growing up is finding a role and trying to fit into society;however, since my parents were immigrants to this country, like Rodriguez's story, a big part of my educational experience was based on being self aware, seeking acceptance, and assimilating into a culture and community that my parents were foreign to. Thus, for me the distance from my classmates' society left me very anxious about my position in the community.

Hello!

My name is Sam Saludades. My family is from the Philippines; however, I am part of the first generation to be born here in the US. I lived in Moorestown, a small town in Southern Jersey which is a short Patco train ride away from Philadelphia. For 12 years, I spent the majority of my education at a small private Quaker school. Up until middle school, the student population was predominantly white; however, in middle school, the school established a new initiative to promote and encourage diversity, recruiting more people of color and of different socioeconomic backgrounds which interestingly and positively changed the dynamic of the classroom and community. In any case, as a result of my educational experience, I developed an interest in how people's backgrounds affect who they interact with, how they interact with others, their approach to obtaining knowledge and education, and in turn, their outlook on the world which is why I was very excited to take this class.