A few years ago, I moved from Wisconsin to North Carolina, where I had accepted a job. This was a major undertaking, but I was happy to do it because I find North Carolina to be a beautiful place and the town I moved to was on the eastern coast. I can see the bay from my front porch, actually. I can drive to the outer banks in about an hour. There are downsides to the location, too. Nearly every weekend, I drive 180 minutes (roundtrip) just to eat lunch, shop, and maybe get a pedicure or see a movie. It's not that these things aren't available where I live; it's just that there are far fewer choices and the standard is lower.
Culture shock is a funny thing. Before I moved, people in Wisconsin kept telling me that I was in for a shock, but I didn't really think so. After all, I've traveled a bit and I spent a semester abroad when I was in college. What could be so different about North Carolina? It's still in the U. S., after all. I realized, fairly quickly, that I had underestimated the differences.
I experienced culture shock on a couple of levels. First, I honestly struggled, at times, to understand what people were saying. The accent threw me, particularly when the speaker was talking quickly. Second, the differences between the Midwest and the South are many and varied. People in the Midwest are often serious, but casual. What I mean is, Midwesterners have a reputation for being hard workers who often are to the point in their communication. However, it's also very common for employees to call their supervisors by their first names. Jeans are a common sight in the workplace. Not in every workplace, obviously. You won't find people in jeans in the governor's office, for example. But it's not considered unprofessional to wear jeans in a lot of businesses and places of employment.
In the South, however, employees often wait to be told by their supervisors to call them by their first names and, even then, many of them prefer not to. Children are generally raised to use "sir" and "ma'am" with adults and many employees also use these terms with their supervisors. That's right - adults call other adults "sir" and "ma'am." And don't even try to wear jeans to work. Granted, I live in a small town in the South, but I had been living in a small town in Wisconsin, too.
The next level of culture shock, and what I really wasn't prepared for, was how public a role religion plays down here. Let me rephrase that: how public a role certain sects of Christianity play down here. I had entered the Bible Belt. One of the first questions I was asked by my secretary when I started working here was, "What religion are you?" I was dumbfounded. I had never been asked that question at work before. I struggled to even answer because I was so shocked that I'd been asked. This was only the first in a long series of uncomfortable encounters I would have with ostentatious displays of Christianity over the next few years.
At this point, I need to tell you that my job was that of a high-school principal. I tell you this because the rules of what people are allowed to say, wear, or display in public schools are different than in businesses or other places of work. At least, that's what I was taught. In my course in public school law, the professor made it clear that public school teachers shouldn't even have visible religious jewelry. The courts have consistently seen public school teachers as in unique positions with regard to the right to free speech. They are seen as having great influence over their students. Because of the separation of church and state, the courts expect that teachers will refrain from talking about or displaying their own religious beliefs. This is something that I have always expected and agreed with throughout my career. In my opinion and in my experience, religion is to be taught at home.
In the South, however, it's a different story. Teachers regularly wear jewelry with crosses and display religious items in their classrooms. During my first week on the job, I attended a meeting where lunch was served. Before we ate, the Superintendent had one of the people at the meeting lead us in prayer. At the start of every School Board meeting, one of the Board members leads a prayer. The particularly painful part of these prayers for me is that they frequently include a reference to "Jesus Christ." These are not non-denominational prayers. And it's not unusual for local government meetings to being with prayer, either.
The clear difference, for me, is that these things are coming from the adults, not from the students. There is also the issue of compelling someone who is at a meeting to take part in a prayer. Students are free to display their religions and if a student wants to pray before he eats his lunch, he is free to do so. However, would it be appropriate for a student to stand in the cafeteria and ask all the other students to be quiet and not to start eating until he had led them in a prayer? Of course not. Public schools are not supposed to allow anyone to impose religious beliefs or practices on the students. So why would it be OK to impose religious beliefs and practices on someone attending a public government meeting?
This all makes me very uncomfortable. I believe that certain things are private, personal, and not for public discussion or display. Religion is one of those things. If I'm at a party with my friends or family and we talk about religion, that's one thing. But it's very different to talk about it at work or to expect people who are at work to pray with you. The weird thing is that we make a big thing out of religious freedom and the separation of church and state in this country. Yet, there are countries in Europe where there is a state church where you don't find such ostentatious displays of religion. Maybe it happens here precisely because we don't have a state church.
