Reflection:
As a follow up to the "Where I'm From" poem, creating this map of my social geographies helped me gain even more depth on my postionality. Yet unlike the poem, this map asked me to place my competing and complimentary identities on the map in current time. In doing this I added even more layers to my culture. I accounted for age, sexuality, gender, race, style, hometown, socioeconomic status, and profession. This identity work served as a precursor for some of the critical reading that I did later in the semester.
It is interesting to note that on this map I included that I identify (when forced to label myself) as a bisexual. In the course of the semester I never felt that we really dealt with the topic of sexuality other then to throw it in the list of other identifiers. I believe that this may be in part because as educators it is confusing to figure out to what extent our sexuality and personal relationships should be shared with our students and their families. I do think that this is an important ongoing conversation because when aspects of our identities are silenced it is usually not healthy. I think that it is important that conversations about all aspects of identity become more commonplace in settings like graduate school and amongst the faculties of our schools. Even the act of including this on my map and writing about my sexuality in this reflection is my attempt to try and embody the honesty and straightforwardness that I believe is necessary. I was prepared to share this element of my identity with the class, but felt that there was never a moment that it was relevant to our conversation. This is reflective of both the culture and norms of our class and my own perceptions of what is appropriate to share.
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