The View from Under the Rock

So this is the one week anniversary of this blog!!! Very exciting. Though it has been a short time I have thought a lot about this little corner of the great world wide web that I get to share my thoughts on. The questions I ask myself revolve around things like "What do I know to be writing in a blog?" "What do I have the authority to write about, and what don't I?" These questions led me to this post.

I have a colleague in the masters of education program I am a part of who is constantly saying that she feels like she has been living under a rock her whole life. This sentiment, shared by many of us, comes from the content of our program which has a strong social justice focus and highlights the voices in our world that have so rarely been heard here in the United States. This process of learning new things keeps us constantly aware of who we are and where we come from. More importantly we are now aware of the importance of that and how it limits or expands our view on the world. So I wanted to talk about the rock I have been living under...

I grew up in a small mid-western town. My parents are middle class, well educated, heterosexual, and white. Until recently I was avidly involved in the church, many churches actually, from Episcopal to Argentine Pentecostal.

This makes me little more than an expert on my own experience and all the paths that experience has traversed, which is mostly common to that of the white middle class US American. Thanks to some classes and friends at times I am able to look at my mind from outside itself, look at the origins of my thoughts and beliefs, the impact of media, education, and middle class ideology. I find this process to be exciting, challenging and so important. I have spent time in the Middle East and Latin America but can only speak about these places as seen through the eyes of a foreigner.

I hope that all of you readers out there (I think there might be two right now) will call me out if I ever overstep my bounds, that you will challenge my assumptions and interpretation of the world and that the dialectics of our discourse will bring us all to a better understanding.