Diversity
Diversity- A Personal Experience
September 10, 2013
After I took some time to reflect back on my past experiences I realized that diversity has affected me a lot more in my life than I thought. When thinking about question number one (Growing up do you remember discovering that your family did anything differently from other families because of your culture, religion, or ethnicity?), I realized that this actually had affected me and I did not really even realize it. I grew up in a family very rooted in Jesus Christ and the belief that he is the only thing that truly sustains us. Growing up I was always in church, we prayed as a family before every meal, and simply made loving other people a priority in our lives. For me these things seemed completely normal for a while, they just seemed like something that I was innately supposed to do. I remember entering middle school and noticing something different about my family than that of some of my friends. Often when visiting a friend’s house the family would not pray before meals and did not show love to one another. This was very odd to me. I also began to be made fun of for saying a “blessing” over my food before I ate my lunch in the school cafeteria. At this point in time I did not realize that I was being affected by diversity, but that is clearly seen after learning about it and reflecting on this experience. I also pondered question number five (Have you spent much time around a friend or family member with a disability?) and this question was very easy for me to think about. I grew up very close to my cousins who both suffer severely from a learning disability. They are both severely learning disabled and have been held back from promotion to the next grade level in school a few times. They are both in special education classes and struggle with things simple as reading sentences. One of them is now in 10th grade while the other is in 4th. Growing up this was very hard for me. I did
September 10, 2013
After I took some time to reflect back on my past experiences I realized that diversity has affected me a lot more in my life than I thought. When thinking about question number one (Growing up do you remember discovering that your family did anything differently from other families because of your culture, religion, or ethnicity?), I realized that this actually had affected me and I did not really even realize it. I grew up in a family very rooted in Jesus Christ and the belief that he is the only thing that truly sustains us. Growing up I was always in church, we prayed as a family before every meal, and simply made loving other people a priority in our lives. For me these things seemed completely normal for a while, they just seemed like something that I was innately supposed to do. I remember entering middle school and noticing something different about my family than that of some of my friends. Often when visiting a friend’s house the family would not pray before meals and did not show love to one another. This was very odd to me. I also began to be made fun of for saying a “blessing” over my food before I ate my lunch in the school cafeteria. At this point in time I did not realize that I was being affected by diversity, but that is clearly seen after learning about it and reflecting on this experience. I also pondered question number five (Have you spent much time around a friend or family member with a disability?) and this question was very easy for me to think about. I grew up very close to my cousins who both suffer severely from a learning disability. They are both severely learning disabled and have been held back from promotion to the next grade level in school a few times. They are both in special education classes and struggle with things simple as reading sentences. One of them is now in 10th grade while the other is in 4th. Growing up this was very hard for me. I did