Becca Odom
Cross Cultural Paper
Throughout my 2 years of being here Concordia has provided me with so many opportunities to see many different situations through a variety of different perspectives that I would have never thought of before. In the field experiences I have been involved with I have clearly seen that there are so many people from diverse backgrounds and we as teachers have to be the biggest advocates for these people. Having this knowledge will make us the best teachers we can be and change so many lives in the process.
Being a part of Club EDEFY at the People’s City Mission has really opened my eyes to viewing multiple situations from different perspectives. In Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development these kids are in the 4th stage of development which is also known as the “Competence Stage”. In this stage kids are creating and accomplishing numerous new skills and knowledge, within the shelter this can be difficult to let kids do this outside of school thus one of the many reasons why they have the Club EDEFY. Along with this stage, it is also a very social stage of development and if kids in this age range experience unresolved feelings of inadequacy and subordination among their peers, there could be problems in terms of capability and self-esteem. With that said this is why we are there, to give them opportunities to be able to show their imagination and to bond with their peers. Sometimes in this situation all these kids have are their peers, since they live within such close proximities they are bound to get to know each other and we want them to have a positive relationship with as many as their peers as possible. We are there to create a safe fun environment for everyone no matter where they come from and no matter what has happened to them.
When we had the Poverty Simulation for ED 201 I really didn’t know a whole lot about this going into it. Going through it and having to provide for a family with all of these situations really frustrated me but it made me look through many different perspectives because I never had to deal with this in my life growing up.
During this time at the People’s City Mission there have been a lot of different situations, good and bad. The one not so good situation that sticks out the most for me was one of the nights that my group was there we had a student that wasn’t behaving and we gave him several warnings about his behavior, after numerous times of telling him to change his behavior we decided that it was time to take him back up to his parents. He was not cooperating and we tried everything in our power to get him up there but he was not having it. We had to get higher authorities involved but after having her come down and watching the way she has handling it was not very good at all.
I tried to see it as this was the best thing for him because he needs to learn these things early but this person was not handling this child the right way even though he was not behaving. I felt really bad about having to go get someone else to help because I feel that I could have handled it better and this child wouldn’t have had to go through that but this just goes to show that there are some things that no matter how we look at it we are never going to be able to do anything else about it and let the higher up people handle it. I learned so much from that one night, I learned to look from a teacher perspective by trying to handle the situation on my own as the authority. I looked at it from a student perspective by having to go get someone higher up and watching them handle it even though I do not feel like it was the right way to handle any kind of situation. I also kind of saw it through a parent perspective because we had to go and talk with the parents that had kids involved in this situation and it was hard to see on their faces that they were trying so hard to raise kids and worry about their finances and everything else that they have going on in their lives.
One situation that I had just very recently encountered is at the People’s City Mission, I was in the arts and crafts room most of the time just hanging out with the kids and making sure that they were behaving. I noticed this little girl that I have never seen before and she wanted to make a craft with me so I made up a little craft we could do. While making the craft I was asking who she was going to give it to and she told me she was making it for her mom and went on to tell me about her mom. After everything she told me about her mom she said that her mom and her dad fight a lot and that is why they are at the mission. When she told me that I felt so bad for this little girl. She told me she likes to be at the mission because all of that goes away and doing all of these fun things gets her mind off of that and that she likes to hang out with cool people like us.
This really touched my heart and made me think in many different perspectives. This little girl didn’t see that being at the mission as a bad thing; she saw it as a better thing for her and her siblings so they didn’t have to see their mom and dad fight anymore. It made me realize how good of a home life I have and made me want to help people like her and just be there for them. I loved seeing how I could make her night just by making a little craft with her.
One theory I found was how direct parent interaction affects children. In my last example this really shows how this kind of interaction affected this little girl and her siblings. I didn’t know these parents but hearing what this little girl told me made me realize that this is very true. A lot of what parents do affect children especially at a young age like this. I think the mom did the right thing by pulling those kids and herself out of that household because there is so much that the kids could have seen that could have affected their lives later on. “A child that has had had abusive or overly intrusive parents is likely to be aggressive with peers(Kagan.)” This quote from the theory is a great example of what could have happened to these kids if the mom decided to keep them in that kind of a situation.
We as teachers have to consider what others have been through. It can be really easy just to look past all of that, but we have to see that everyone comes from different backgrounds and we have to treat them as different people. Even if a child has had a hard home life we have to try our best to create an environment where they can forget about all of that and focus on bettering themselves and helping them become successful in life.
Through all of these experiences I have been through it really makes me want to help out everyone no matter what they come from. I want to be able to make a positive difference in their lives and have them look up to me and come to me when they are in need. I want to be able to provide all of this and Concordia has really opened my eyes to all of these different perspectives I need to be able to see to be able to be the best teacher I can be to help students in every way I can.
Works Cited
"Behaviorism."Learning Theories.Behaviorist Theories, Paradigms and Perspectives.Web. 17 Apr 2013.
Kagan, Jerome. "The Role of Parents in Children's Psychological Development."Pediatrics AAPublishing. AA Publications.Web. 17 Apr 2013.