Personal Experience : My Personal Reflection

This class has really opened up my eyes to many new views and opinions toward certain information and assumptions. Before taking this class I did not believe I was racist or had any downward views towards any people or cultural. This soon came to my attention that everyone has a little bit of racist in them no matter how hard you try not to be. I also thought that Columbus discovered America, I found it very interesting and almost common sense when we discussed this issue and how the school curriculum has been lying to students in a sense about the discovery of America. The finial bias I soon came to see was that no matter how much you think you will not face other cultures or other religions in schools that you are not familiar with your chances are very slim. No matter where you plan to teach at their will always be situations that you are unfamiliar with.

I came into this class not so naïve as some students may have been. I’ve grown up going to public schools, living in a diverse small town, and having interracial relationships in my family. Although I was informed on some forms of racism and the fact that racism does in fact still exist, I didn’t realize it was extensive as it really is. All the readings, videos, and lectures have directly related back to the purpose of the course. As a whole, I feel like this class has grown in knowledge not only about how racism affects people, but how to change and make a difference. This class has informed me a lot more about the unfortunately thriving acts of racism in the United States.

I learned that I will need to understand the issues facing my students inside and outside of the classroom. By having this understanding, I hope to be able to form real relationships with my students, make learning relevant to each student, and be able to provide the necessary support to make them successful learners. I want to be a resource and/or participant in my students’ life rather than just a spectator and/or teacher teaching about diversity. I realized that my previous perception would have left some students struggling in my classroom. I would have overlooked students’ needs if I only concentrated on teaching diversity in my classroom. I believe that this experience has made me grow as an educator and made me realize how I need to understand the complexities faced by my students in order for me to become successful in the classroom and to become an effective teacher.

I learned some important things from this course that I will allow to stick with me no matter my profession. Diversity is something I will always have to deal with regardless if it is race, gender, or gender orientation. Importantly this course has allowed me to grow as an individual and has shown me that it is okay to learn about other races and their background. Not only has it allowed me to be acceptable of everyone in fact, it has allowed me to be less judgmental amongst others.

Asian American parents believe in keeping many of their issue within the family which makes them reluctant to seek services. Because of this culture believe, Asian Americans utilize mental health services at a lower rate compared to other Americans (Sue, 1994). Socially sanctioned claims concerning Asian American's social character or integrity helps to explain why they don't utilize services as often as other Americans. Counselors can work to lessen the effects of racism and discrimination that have impacted Americans by expanding their knowledge of discriminations experiences of Asian American's and

Diversity and social justice is not something that I was familiar with prior taking this course, nor did I ever have enough knowledge of the deep and complicated social and economic structure in this county. It has been an eye opener course, I gained a lot of familiarity on the issues of race, culture and the other elements that but this county together. My prior awareness about the issues of sexism, ableism, and racism was limited and mostly were self-taught.

Looking back on my previous thoughts on race it is sad how ignorant I was. I grew up in Orange County in a predominantly white community. I really had minimal interaction with people from different races or ethnicities. Even when I did interact with my peers who were of different races they did not know about or embrace their culture. Lack of interaction with different cultures caused me to have no real knowledge about the lifestyles and hardships people of other cultures endure in America. I thought we lived in an ideal world where the color of your skin didn’t matter and everyone had the freedom to practice their beliefs or religion freely. I truly believed that discrimination and racism had ended decades ago when segregation and slavery were abolished. Of course I saw stories on the news and heard stories about the South and racism that still exists there, but I never thought anyone living in San Diego or even California would be discriminated against based off the color of their skin. Although I was not necessarily excited to take this course at first, I am now so grateful for the awareness and knowledge I gained from this amazing class. My beliefs about race and ethnicity have been completely transformed by this course and all I have learned.

Through this course, I learned about access to work for black workers. Initially, before taking this course, I naively thought that

This course is interesting thus far. I enjoyed my first assignment about Color Consciousness, the video put things in perspective for me on how words can affect someone. I am slowly finding more information on Pacific islanders for my course assignment, very interesting to say the least. I'm also learning that racism is not just between two ethnicity's it can be within the same group of people. Although some may say they have no discrimination towards someone that appears different from themselves what they don't realize is that people say prejudice things without knowing what theyv've said is taken in a different way from someone else. There will always be discrimination and prejudice, found in the world I think that this class alone, could

As individuals, we are diverse based on the background, experience, ability, race, language, etc. which impact the lens through which we view others and ourselves. As diverse individual, we may belong to dominant or non- dominant groups. Thus, either we have power and privilege or we experience discrimination and oppression. Further, we are shelled with diversity, ethnicity, and multiculturalism issues. Counselors have some ethical primary responsibilities to respect the dignity and promote the welfare of the client (A.1.a), “honoring diversity and embracing a multicultural approach in support of the worth, dignity” and “promoting social justice” (Herlihy & Corey, 2014, p. 3)

In my division ii, I took a gradute level global health course which broadened my knowlege about many other different cultures and races. In this class I wrote numerous papers about racism in the public health system. I also took other courses such as Race and Ethnicity, Student Peer Leadership and Facilitation,Immigration and Identity,Social Problems that taught me about racism,sexism and classism. These classes informed me of the world around me and allowed me to make my opinions and suggestions.

During this course, I have definitely become more aware of my social imagination. I can now look beyond my own everyday life and see how relationship between individual troubles and the large social forces that are the driving forces behind them. In the end of this course, I believe that lack of education, racism, and unemployment are all related. In the matter of education and racism, it are not just experienced by one person and possibly that person’s family but by all of those in the community. If a low preforming urban school closes down, it is not just one person who is not educated. It is all of the people who misses a quality education. Now because they are uneducated, each of these individual people, and their families if they have

I am from a small rural town populating roughly 1000 people, grew up with loving parents, and an otherwise ‘normal’ life. A lot of things in my life changed when I was a young teen, and these experiences have largely impacted the person I am today. My family (i.e. both parents and sister) are all Christians, although I identify myself more as an Agnostic. Because of this and because of my experiences, I have become a very open-minded and empathetic person which I believe are strengths I have in communicating with others. Although I have grown a lot in my ability to communicate effectively throughout the years, there are certainly still areas where I am limited in which I will discuss further in the paragraphs below.

One of my personal experiences that I had was when my family decided to move from New Jersey to Florida. I never planned on moving with them but my mother basically forced me into moving with them. It wasn’t really all that moving stuff because the new house was actually pretty nice, it was just I had all my friends there and I was doing well in school. Nothing I said convinced my mother so after a week of packing we was off to Florida. The first week being there was a horrible week. Nothing was going right for me, I missed the school bus for a whole week, dropped my milk on my new shoes, and tripped over nothing in lunch. It was just trying to move back but parents always have this life lesson speech about trying to make new friends and try to get used to being here until we move again. It’s been about a month since we moved to Florida and I met about zero friends but I got used to living here since I’ve found something that interested me as an after school hobby and that was fishing. There’s barley any lakes or ponds in New Jersey so fishing wasn’t really something you do as a time waster. I usually fished right after I got home but on that day it was rainy and it wasn’t really a good time to fish so I just decided to practice my free shots until it started raining hard. I think I was outside for about 20minutes and suddenly a couple kids from my new school asked if they can shoot

Beginning the writing process, I established for myself a mental roadmap. I asked myself what I was trying to say, and what the goal or intent of the writing would be. Was I attempting to persuade my readers, or to be didactic instead? I considered the "how" part of the equation later, and honed each sentence word for word. The how part of the writing process was relatively simple compared to the question of what to say, and why. I had to imbue the paper with social commentary, for there was much to say about these readings.