Perspectives on Diversity and Culture
The three colleagues/friends that I talked to about culture and diversity all had the same opinionated definition. To sum it up, they stated that to them culture is the way that people behave according to the rules of their heritage. When it came to diversity they all had slightly different opinions. One stated that diversity means to them that a person is different according to race, religion, language, etc. She also mentioned that because of diversity, we are able to recognize other cultures and learn more about them. Another colleague said that diversity to her is standing out from the crowd and letting your differences be known. She says that she loves the diversity in her class room because it makes her aware of the cultures of her students and how things are done in their homeland.
Based upon what I have studied so far, the only thing that I can relate to with my colleagues are that culture is a set of rules that govern what we do and how we behave. The video says that culture is like an iceberg, and only the tip shows this includes books, music, clothes. The other 90% that is beneath is what is really important this includes ideas such as those related to children. This is what the colleagues failed to realize, that culture is more than just an outer appearance.
Seeing the way my colleagues view culture and diversity gives me insight that we have not yet arrived into fully understanding culture and we have a long way to go.
Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Culture and diversity [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
I love your end comment. All too often do we categorize culture as a cliche, overgeneralized version of describe people and communities. We often downplaynyhe importance of culture and how far we have to actually go to understand how culture is engrained and affects each of us. Oversimplifyijgnthe importance of culture and cultural awareness is worse than ignoring it entirely.
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