Personal Narrative: My Honor And Privilege Essay

My Honor and Privilege: An Exploration into My Personal Identity Currently society is exhibiting a duality of individual’s personal identity. The unique individual is valued for their ability to be themselves at the same time acceptance and belonging to the group is strived for. In this paradoxically society, I have been examining myself and own identity as it is a product of all the experienced I have accumulated in my life. My sense of sense has been shaped by the privileges and the honors that have been bestowed on me by my socioeconomic status, culture, race, language, sex and sexual orientation. I attribute much of who I am to my upbringing a family, however the time has come to think about who I want to be in the future, especially considering …show more content…
I was raised in a middle-class, highly nuclear family that highly valued education. I credit my upbringing in a supportive and loving environment with two parents with much of the academic and social success I have experienced in my life. Both my parents are teachers and instilled in me a love for learning. The freedom of summers allowed my family the ability to travel all around the United States, and some places outside which exposed me to diverse cultures and people. I visited many national parks and museums and participated in fun activities on our trips, giving me worldly experiences. This was a privilege that has given me a passion for travel and learning about new places due to my family’s socioeconomic status and culture of my family. We are middle class citizens and my parents strived to enforce finical responsibility and thoughtful spending so that money was never a stress in our household. While my family dates to be mostly middle-class, we maintain our status through hard work and smart saving. Related to finances and education, another privilege of mine is the ability to attend a private, out of state, liberal arts college like Gustavus Adolphus College. Post-secondary education was never a question of if, but where in my life. While I worked hard to earn scholarships and to pay down loans, I have the support from my parents to make college a reality in my life. Pursuit of worldly experiences and college is ingrained into my identity and are parts I want to highlight in my teaching to inspire my students to also love learning. While I have minimal exposure to poverty, homelessness and single-parent households in my personal experience, my involvement influences me to want to provide similar opportunities to my future students, due to their positive impact on me. I just must be aware that I have had the privilege of my past and other paths of life, my students may experience are just as honorable as