My second day was yet another great one filled with excitement and learning opportunities. I kept my own promise from last night, which was to step out my comfort zone and challenge my cultural identity. I’m very proud of myself!
Having originally come from a country that is thousands miles away from the US, I am also aware of my challenges. Being a “marginal person” who is living on the borders of two completely different cultures, I feel my values and beliefs are constantly challenged especially in my daily work, and sure enough, in every session I attended throughout this conference as well. Whether I’m serving as a participant or facilitator, I often confuse myself by trying to maintain my own cultural background or/and insisting my bi-cultural identity that I’ve developed since I came to this country seven years ago. And, what is challenging is, when I’m confused, I tend to chose to be quiet, disengage, and pause from the moment. However, I was different today because I made differences in my attitudes and released myself from the fear I had before. That was, I took the most of the safe environment created and tried to contribute by engaging and sharing with the group/individuals I was working with at the moment. The reactions within myself were significantly different than those which had been unless otherwise; therefore, so were my learning outcomes. These results were the product of overcoming the confusion. Our keynote speaker, Mrs. Eltahawy stated that “I’m a big fan of confusion. Because, when you confuse someone, you have to pause and rethink what you thought was true.” This was exactly what happened to me today. I loved the freedom and flexibility that were granted for us to be able to put on and take off either the trainer’s or the patient’s hat depending on the activity or context in which we were working at the moment. There was a lot more to gain.
Many of my international students and study abroad returnees also experience a similar dilemma in regards to fear and confusion. Now my goal as a trainer is to create a safe learning environment for them, as I have repeatedly said to myself. That is a community, space, or classroom where they can share their feelings and thoughts without any fear for making others confused. Whether each of us is an international student, study abroad returnee, or domestic student who has never left the country before, we all come from different regions, socio-economic, classes, sexual orientations, ages, religions, and ethnic groups. In order for us to build a community within such a diverse group of people, differences must not be ignored but shared through the promotion of cultural understanding and respect. If you don’t see that’s happening, make it happen. As Mrs. Eltahawy said in her presentation, “If you are a minority, celebrate it because that’s where the changes have come from in the past,” which was one of the most powerful statements I heard during the conference.
I had set goals for myself before coming to the conference, which were to improve my KSAs in student engagement, experiential learning, and intercultural relations. Although I realized those goals were too broad to begin with, I am fully confident to say they all have been successfully accomplished because I’ve had such tangible experiences. I’ll look forward to keep building further learning upon them at my work.
I thank you all so much and hope to see as many of you as possible next year!
No comments:
Post a Comment