week 4- microaggressions

After watching the video segment by Dr. Sue, I remembered an incident that happened a few months ago at work.  One of my co-workers is stationed within another agency.  She had become friends with a woman who is a lesbian.  Other people working there started making comments about them and being very unprofessional.  My co-worker was very upset and it made it very hard for her to work in that office.  She went to our director to explain how uncomfortable she was and really didn’t want to be in that office anymore.  My director told her to not be so sensitive. My co-worker is still in that office but she still feels uncomfortable.

I now know that my co-worker was a victim of microinvalidation.  I don’t believe my director meant to invalid her feelings.  I felt bad for my co-worker because she was very upset.  I could listen to her but I couldn’t identify with how she was feeling. 

The video segment has made me more aware of comments being said around me.  It is amazing how many things are said and people don’t realize how they make others feel.    I would love to take this video segment to work and show it at a staff meeting.  I believe a lot of people would learn a lot from it. 

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (2011). “Microaggressions in Everyday Life” with Dr. Sue

Class 6 - week 3

I asked 3 co-workers their definitions of culture and diversity.  The following are their definitions:

1.        Culture – it means a person’s religion or their way of life.  The way that they were raised by their family and their values and beliefs.

Diversity – it means a variety of people or things.  It also could mean a various amount of opinions or genders/social/economic backgrounds.

2.        Culture – traditions, beliefs and expectations of a people.  People could be defined as a race, a nation, a family, or even a business.

Diversity - the comingling of different cultures, race, nationalities, traditions, beliefs.

3.        Culture-learned ways of acting, thinking.

Diversity – it is made up of non-stereotypical roles (non gender roles), a variety of socio-economical backgrounds, many types of employment, and many types of family composition and cultures

      
I think a lot of what I have been learning so far in this course is in the definitions I received from my co-workers.  For example, that culture is about their families as well as their values and beliefs.   I think anything has been omitted from what we are currently studying in this class. After seeing my co-workers definitions and thinking about mine, I realized our definitions are very similar.  I find it very interesting because we are from different backgrounds but we are all in the early childhood field.

Week 2 class 6 -My Family Culture

My family and I are being sent to another country and I can only bring 3 small items.  The items I would bring are a small picture album of my family, my mother’s wedding ring, and a letter my mom wrote to me when I was about 14 years old.

The album has pictures of my mom, dad, baby pictures of my children, and pictures from my wedding day.  My mom has passed away so those pictures are very important to me.  Also, baby pictures of my children because I would not be able to replace them.

I would bring my mom’s wedding ring.  It is the ring I wear because I lost my wedding ring in the Atlantic Ocean a few years ago.  The ring is very special to me because it had belonged to my mother and she wore it till the day she died.

The third thing I would bring is a letter that my mom wrote while she was in the hospital.  I was about 14 years old and my mom had been in the hospital for about 2 years.  I would go see her several times a week when possible but  there were times because of my dad’s work schedule and other factors that I might not have seen her for a week or so.  She sent this letter home with my dad.  It was about a upcoming concert that I had and how she was sorry she couldn’t be there.

I would explain to others that all of these things are important to me because they represent my family.  Family is the most important thing in my life and they represent very special moments in my life.  Two of the items represent my mom who passed away in 1999.  It would be important for me to have these if I was not ever going to be able to come back to my home country again.

If when I arrived to my new country as a refugee, I was told I had to give up 2 items I would be devastated.  I would do everything possible to keep them.  I would probably try to sneak them into something or hid them so I could come back someday to get them.

This assignment gave me a better understanding of how refugees feel when they are sent to another country.  Sometimes they are not given an option to bring anything with them and that makes me feel very sad for them.  I had a very hard time deciding on what I would bring!