Challenges and Advantages of Pursuing Personal Growth
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Challenges and Advantages of Pursuing Personal Growth
Week 5: Challenges and Advantages of Pursuing Personal Growth
One of the major challenges to any sort of change—including the deep personal change that comes with practicing cultural humility—is fear. Another challenge is simply that it is hard work. It is difficult to look back at one’s own past actions or values and come to realizations that those actions may have been wrong or that those values marginalized other groups. Or even the realization that as someone of a certain race, gender, or class, you may have great privilege while others do not.
This week, you research a change agent in your own community, explore the challenges that they have faced, and apply the concepts of cultural humility to your personal and professional relationships.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
- Describe change agents who exemplify cultural humility
- Identify challenges to cultural humility and change
- Describe approaches for developing relationships with individuals of different cultures
- Describe advantages of increasing diversity in a professional setting
Learning Resources
Fear and Authentic Connection
Dolan, T. (2016, January 14). Connecting with the ‘other’. VolumeOne. https://m.volumeone.org/articles/2016/01/14/205781-connecting-with-the-other
Winters, J. (2002, May 1). Why we fear the unknown. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200205/why-we-fear-the-unknown
Abumrad, J. (2020, June). How Dolly Parton led me to an epiphany [Video]. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/jad_abumrad_how_dolly_parton_led_me_to_an_epiphany/discussion
Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 13 minutes.
Celebrating Difference
Kline, M. (2016, March 8). Celebrating our differences, connecting through our sameness. The Higher Ed Workplace Blog. https://www.cupahr.org/blog/celebrating-our-differences-connecting-through-our-sameness/
Tapia, A. T. (n.d.). Viewpoint: For diversity to work, recognize differences, not just similarities. https://www.kornferry.com/content/dam/kornferry/docs/article-migration/Briefings21_Viewpoint_p9-10.pdf
Discussion: Community Change Agent
Social movements have long highlighted the marginalization, inequality, and violence against certain groups in society. In recent years, Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, and the Indigenous Peoples Movement, among others, have protested to raise awareness and take human rights action. Out of these movements, more and more community heroes are emerging. Some are larger-than-life and loud, while others are confident yet soft-spoken. Who do you look to as a model of cultural humility? Who has effected change surrounding diversity and inclusion in your community?
In this Discussion, you survey your own community for an example of a change agent who demonstrates cultural humility in their life or work.
To Prepare
- Review your course announcements for possible information related to this week’s Discussion and Assignment.
- Review all of the Learning Resources assigned for this week.
- Identify an individual in your community who models the tenets of cultural humility (lifelong learning and ethical self-reflection, recognition and challenging of power imbalances, institutional accountability) and whom you would consider a change agent. This might be a worker who consistently and loudly advocates for diverse hiring to fill vacant positions, a volunteer who hands out meals to homeless citizens, the director of a nonprofit organization who has started support groups for people undergoing a variety of crises, a neighbor who helps young children with their homework until their parents return from work, or a person who has started a community garden in a food desert part of your town.
- Locate and contact the change agent. Ask the following questions:
- What motivated you to begin your work and what keeps you going?
- What immediate challenges did you confront at the beginning and what challenges have you continued to confront?
- What new understanding have you acquired about diverse “others” in the course of continuing your work?
- If time and circumstance will not allow you to talk directly to the change agent, conduct research on them online or through your local newspaper.
By Day 4
Identify the change agent from your community, and provide a link to their work if available. Explain how this person has demonstrated cultural humility in their life and/or work. Explain what you admire about this person and what you would like to emulate and why. Then, summarize what you learned about the change agent’s motivations, challenges, and new understandings.
By Day 6
Respond to at least one colleague by sharing an insight gained from reading their post.
Reflective Assignment: Applying Cultural Humility to Relationships
People are often drawn to similarity, seeking out friends and communities who think like them, have the same interests and preferences, similar financial means, political affiliations, and values. Surrounded by enough people who are exactly like you, you can begin to think the entire world is the same way. But this would be a limited—and damaging—view. In a professional context, organizations and businesses are actively recruiting a more diverse work force because they recognize the benefits of multiple perspectives, backgrounds, and worldviews.
In this Assignment, you reflect on someone with whom you interact frequently who is of a different cultural background. You then consider the challenges, rewards, and approaches of developing a cross-cultural relationship with this person and others.
To Prepare
- Review all of the Learning Resources assigned for this week. Pay special attention to the Abumrad video.
- Think of a person you work with who does not share your cultural background (e.g., race, ethnicity, religion, ability, sexual orientation). This could be a colleague, acquaintance, family member, someone in a service or retail position for an establishment you frequent, or a member of the public whom you serve in your job.
By Day 7
Submit a 1- to 2-page critical reflection in which you respond to the following:
- Describe a person you interact with on a regular basis who:
- Does not share your cultural background
- Challenges your assumptions or beliefs and/or subscribes to beliefs you may not hold (Some possibilities are a colleague, acquaintance, family member, someone in a service or retail position for an establishment you frequent, or a member of the public you serve in your job.)
- Identify the challenges that you have faced in connecting and creating a relationship with this person. What steps do you need to take to overcome these challenges and develop an authentic relationship with this person?
- Do you think this person wants/would welcome developing a more connected relationship with you? What disadvantages might there be for them in forging a closer relationship with you?
- Considering your professional role, how will you create a cultural “third space,” as described by Abumrad, when interacting with people who are different from you?
- What are the advantages of cultivating professional relationships with others outside your culture in this way?