Today and last night has been crazy as in how others act in this parent free life style. This makes me wonder if they act like that regularly. I never imagined that the students here would act or be that way. I was just shocked.
Class today was great. We learned about public speaking in the later part of the morning session and in the afternoon session from Jen. In the afternoon session, we had to give presentations with about a minute of preparation in smaller groups.
For my first presentation I talked about a way to fight obesity by making nutrition a required class in elementary school. Kisa who was facilitating our group said we could talk about anything. For my second presentation in front of two groups and later the whole class, I talked about something I really knew about- the four periods of European piano classical music. I tried to keep it very short to not bore my audience. But I find such classifications fascinating. When I listen to a classical piano piece, I try to place it in Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or Modern.
Tonight the Woman and Leadership class had a Diversity activity. For the first activity the two facilitators put different colored stickers on all of the students and told us to divide in groups without talking. I thought that the point of the game was to divide by the color of the dot on our foreheads. With my eyes closed, I tried to imagine how it would work out and how I could react in these situations. Dividing in groups went smoothly. Afterwards, the facilitators left the exercises up to our interpretation. Then we played two silent games to be open and share secrets.
The games were very intense. For the first game, we were to respond to a yes or no very personal question by stepping in wards or staying put. Then we were asked to see where others stood and how it felt to be in either place. The last game was where we were to write our secrete anonymously. Our secretes were then read aloud by the two facilitators. I did not enjoy it at all. I have no problem listening to others but I do not like telling others about myself or how I am feeling.
Between the two different silent games we played a game as to how we identified ourselves. There were three questions. What do we most identify ourselves with most and least and what makes us fill privileged. I went to religion, then international status, and then religion again.
I think that people often mix up race with culture. It is culture, not race that defines a person. Ironically, a lot of anti-racial programs and sayings are counterproductive. By dividing things by race statically, we say we are different because of our color. The saying “We are different on the outside but the same within” is very counterproductive. We point out that we are different in how we look when we are truly more different in our personalities.
Tomorrow we have a ropes course that is to build trust and teamwork with my classmates.
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That's a good point about the race vs. culture thing, but race still has a lot to do with it.
ReplyDeleteRacism still exists to this day, and many people, just by looking by another person's color of skin, treat them differently or even inferior.
African-Americans, though many grow up in many different parts of the world, share that same history of enslaved ancestors. It is one way race defines a group and projects it into their culture.
Though Mexicans and Salvadorians have different cultures, many people treat both groups as though they were the same. This is not true.
What I'm saying is that, although you make a good point about culture, race is still as equally important.