Space And Place By Patricia Price

Colleges and students Patricia Price said, “Humans are spatial animals”. In Price’s article “Place”, she believes that human beings constantly interact with the territory that surrounds them and try to familiarize themselves with it (Price 119). When students find themselves in college for the first time, the college is an unfamiliar and intimidating place for them. But immediately they will start to interact with the place, because human beings don’t feel comfortable in a new place and it’s human instinct to find a sense of belonging in a new place. In the book “Space and Place”, Yi-Fu Tuan argues that intimate experience humans have in a place shape their identities. College is a place for its students to have many intimate experiences
One college represents one student body. The interactions among students shape the students’ identities. In the book “Making and molding identity in schools student narratives on race, gender, and academic engagement”, author Ann Davidson interviewed with Marbelle, a young Mexican who studies in an American college. Marbelle believes the power of mastering in English; however, her behaviors in some ways contradict with her goals and beliefs she expresses. She is hesitant to engage in linguistic activities. She said “they look at us like they disapprove of our speaking English. They look at us funny and giggle” (Davidson 66). For Marbella, being Mexican produces an inclination to remain silence and a certain degree of distancing behavior in order to protect her from psychological harm. Davidson spent days following Marbelle and only observed her interacting with two other non-native English speakers. Due to Marbelle’s self-consciousness and the fear of being laughed at, she becomes silent in any English speaking settings. But this is not what she wants herself to be. Because of other people’s reaction to her when she speaks English, she chose to be a different person. This is a vivid example of how student body of a school will give a person an identity. If the college has discrimination between different students, the student will inclined to isolate him/herself from others. And eventually develops an introverted personality. If the student body is a friendly and welcoming community, students from different racial or ethnicity group are all being accepted and receive equally attention; students in this college is more likely to develop good social skills and more willing to speak up. Individuals always respond to the feedback other people give us. If our certain behavior doesn’t receive approval from others, we will change our behaviors. This is why college,