Ryan Darwish Dr. McBride , Dr.
Bellamy EDUC 200 December 11th 2009
Final Reflection Paper Cultural competence, two words that can mean many different things to every individual person based on their own upbringing, personal experiences and reflecting back on those experiences. Praxis plays a very important role in what cultural competence means to every person. Coming to the U.S.A as an international student I felt that I was very culturally competent. Growing up with over 20 nationalities in high school made me feel like I was culturally competent because that was my definition of culture. I felt that being culturally competent meant dealing with people from different countries, races and religion and not different socioeconomic status or lifestyle. However since the start of the semester and beginning of my reflection period of my cultural competence , I really did start to understand what it meant to be culturally competent. At the start of the semester I thought that being culturally competent meant that I knew what I could, and could not say in front of people from both different cultures, races, socioeconomic status etc. and being able to choose my words appropriately while on certain topics depending on who was around me. However now I understand that becoming fully culturally competent is a lot deeper that just knowing what to say and immersing yourself in a culture. Though after much reflection and much more experience, while out on our practicum and even the classroom meetings, being able to experience how a different culture tackles the same diversity issues as I do, helps me come closer to being fully culturally competent. After re-reading my reflection paper from earlier in the semester I realized that my reflection was narrow. I did not realize, or reflect upon, the fact that there was a lot more to thinking about diversity than just different nationalities or races. At the beginning of the semester
Ryan Darwish Dr. McBride , Dr. Bellamy EDUC 200 December 11th 2009
I felt that my focus on diversity was mainly in those two categories and not enough on other aspects of diversity such as socioeconomic status and gender that was also a part of being diverse that I was unaware of and did not reflect upon enough. There are many different things that I was aware of however did not have the experience to figure out my competence in certain situations. Such as if my interpretation of different cultures/race was also present in children of that culture/race and if I could relate to children from a different cultural upbringing from my own with regards to hobbies , interests and being able to relate to their home lives. By reflecting on different experiences that I have encountered throughout the semester I have realized that I do have flaws that I was not aware of previous to this course that I have been working on throughout to course, and will continue to work on past this course such as lacking being able to properly relate to people who are of a lesser socioeconomic class, such as hobbies, which I will always have to face and need to improve on. However I realized that I do have strengths such as my ability to steer away from my first impression based on appearance and race and to ignore that first impression before trying to get to know a person. My experience has also helped me realize that I can be adaptable in certain cases and find relations between children of different cultures through my own life experiences. There have been many experiences through my experience in the school that helped me realize that I had a lot to reflect on. A few of these experiences are: Coming closer to thanksgiving break and casually talking to the student about being excited for break and eating all the food etc. Not being aware that not all students could afford to have turkey and a big dinner. Not realizing the different socioeconomic classes I mentioned it to a student who was too
Ryan Darwish Dr. McBride , Dr. Bellamy EDUC 200 December 11th 2009
poor to afford a nice dinner and she told me she could only have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for thanksgiving. Another incident was being questioned about explaining my culture to a younger mind of a different culture when the students would ask me about where I came from and what I was doing in the states and why it wasnt in my own home, gave me a chance to reflect on my culture and my reason for being here in the states. In conclusion there are things I definitely need working on improving in many ways such as being able to identify a certain socio economic class based on American culture and life rather than my own. I feel through constant reflection on not only this semester of observation, but throughout my years in college and even in the working world that I can truly become more culturally competent.