PART 2: This section is designed to help improve your cultural competence by advancing your cultural knowledge and experience, increase your sensitivity toward culturally diverse group members, and to reflect on the intercultural experience. It intends to challenge your biases, prejudices, and limited knowledge about a specific culture. For this assignment, please select a person (interviewee) where you feel some sense of discomfort/who has a different cultural and/or ethnic background from you, as you consider embarking on this activity. You should spend some time with the person and interview the person (please exercise social distance….this can be done via zoom, skype, etc.) to explore any similarities and differences with your culture. DO NOT PUT YOUR SELF IN AN UNSAFE SITUATION. You may select a cultural population that is defined by nationality, ethnicity, or race and of a minority group in the United States. Look up relevant scholarly sources such as books and journal articles regarding the person’s cultural population. Get a sense of not just what is known but also what is unknown about this person’s community.
=>>: Make sure to discuss your assumptions and biases about the person/population you have selected.
=>>: Discuss your reactions to the experience. How was your experience consistent with and/or different from your biases and preconceptions? How did this experience add to your knowledge of your selected cultural group? What did you learn about yourself through this experience? Were your experiences consistent or inconsistent with published works on this population? What were your level of challenge (ways in which this experience challenges your biases, prejudices, and limited knowledge and extends your current level of cultural awareness, knowledge, and skill)? How does your experience connect to the course content (i.e., readings, activities, and discussions)? How do the models of privilege, power, and cultural identity development apply to the cultural group members with whom you interacted?
=>> As a school counselor, who will you develop an effective multicultural intervention with a client or student from your selected group.
Suggestions: Ask your interviewee to tell you about their culture, life, way of being, what is most important to them, and why. Gather as much information as you can, but do not jeopardize your opportunity to get to know someone of a different culture, because you are too busy getting all the specific information.
Be sure to include your reflection on the experience: Were you comfortable asking your interviewee about their culture? What did you learn? What made an impression on you? How will this assignment inspire you to be aware of Multicultural/Diversity concerns during counseling/ working with others? Remember, you can add to this list. Include comments on some of the following questions:
What differences in culture and ethnicity were you able to identify?
How does the interviewee self-identify?
What customs or rituals are important to your interviewee?
What language(s) are used? Communication styles?
What were non-verbal communications utilized?
What are the customs of dress used?
What are their beliefs about Family? Religion? Gender Roles? Work? Education? Humor?
What are their favorite foods? Hobbies? Entertainment?
How have the “isms” affected their lives?
Were there any surprises? Confirmations? Lessons?
Richmond Beach was my otherworldly home base in my adolescence. It is a rough sea shore in the city of Richmond Beach, which can be gotten to by a long downhill drive (via vehicle or bike) from the city of Edmonds. Or on the other hand, as I did frequently, went for the 30-minute stroll from my home to the quiet waters through a peaceful walk around the forested areas of Woodway. It used to be a spot possessed by Native Americans, however now it is involved by for the most part Caucasian individuals. In any case, a chain of command remains in tribute to the clans that used to call the sea shore home. It has an immense property, with a sea shore, a play area, two upper gardens for the view and entertainment, bunch “mystery” trails along the earth slopes, excursion zones, and a square where individuals can stroll around, clean up after a dip, and seats for the dynamite see. With the sagebrush, jabbering feathered creatures, train tracks, the croak of frogs, wind, herons, different shells, a cavern along the sea shore, and an awesome perspective on the Olympic Mountains, Richmond Beach is on the double conventional and uncommon. Being there brings you into another state, in which you need to introspect, be quiet, and be certain. In secondary school, I was not a social individual. I didn’t have such a significant number of companions, and I didn’t feel like I had a place in a gathering more often than not. In any case, when I went to Richmond Beach, these stresses were deserted. It appeared to be a mysterious spot to me, and as it were, it despite everything does. I would stroll to different places on the sea shore: a mystery collapse the dirt slopes on the left, the train tracks that lead right from Seattle to Chicago, the mass of sagebrush where the song of feathered creatures made for a peaceful scene, and obviously the sea shore itself, which was dispersed with shells, tide pools, crabs, seals, driftwood, leftovers of gatherings, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The passing trains consistently pulled in me there also. My first word was “choo,” since the initial three years of my life was close to a train station in the Greenlake zone of Seattle. Thus, I had a calling towards trains since my introduction to the world. Strolling the tracks, I would meet intriguing individuals, figure out how to realize when trains were getting through the vibration and singing of the rails, and would be submerged in a world with a timberland on one side and the Puget Sound and the other. This blend of woods and sea was captivating, and caught my creative mind. I composed numerous sonnets about this spot, and have been ceaselessly roused by the air there. Truth be told, my verse has grown to a great extent at Richmond Beach. No what other place have I composed such a significant number of ballads—aside from maybe on open vehicle. I began composing expressive and story verse around 11 years old, and have proceeded since. For as long as barely any years, I have been composing only haiku. A great deal of my haiku is enlivened by the idea of Richmond Beach, how I identify with it profoundly, and by the individuals who used to possess that land—as I feel an uncommon association with Native Americans. It appears that Richmond Beach is one of those spots that regardless of how awful you believe, you will leave feeling alleviated and restored. It resembles treatment just to stroll around, feel the ionic breeze of the Puget Sound, smell the ocean growth and dampness, hear the assortment of winged animals singing, tune in to the smashing of moderate waves, witness the boats and different vessels on the water, take in the Olympic mountains in the entirety of their wonder, see individuals having fun on the sea shore, the whistle and trucking of a far off train, and feel the sand on the bottoms of your feet, merging into one another with each progression. It is an entire helpful bundle. It will be difficult to ever overlook Richmond Beach. It is currently interwoven in my verse, adolescence, profound life, family life, sentimental recollections, and even the death of my dad, whose remains was spread there. Thus, at whatever point I visit Richmond Beach, these components rest in my brain and soul. There are different spots that mix my creative mind and supply me with wistful surges, however Richmond Beach is at the highest priority on my rundown.