Cultural Sensitivity/Awareness
A number of issues that come up in course of a FW education have to do with your role as a visitor in a completely different culture. While it is possible to go through the motions of a semester in isolation from your surroundings, this is really missing the point of a school which emphasizes global understanding and social change.
It is vital to look at issues concerning the societal and historical roles of gender, politics, religion, sexuality, race, and age, if we are to understand what we are doing in a new culture.
The faculty at each Center should help you do this, through the Area Studies Program at the very least.
Most of the students in Friends World are from the United States. Most have the kind of skin color which people call "white." The school is run from a headquarters in the United States, by people who are almost without exception from the United States. Most of our Centers (or all of them, if you look at it right) are in regions of the world whose history includes a legacy of colonialism and/or economic domination by an English-speaking world power. These are serious issues in a school which aims for global education and an awareness of social concerns. At the very least, it means that most of us have to work hard to keep in mind the perspectives of the rest of the world.
Whatever our background, however, our identity has consequences in the way others perceive us, in the way others relate to us, as well as in the way we perceive and relate to others in our environment. In terms of education, we should stay aware of the extent to which we depend on a school which is identified (to varying extents at various centers) with an outside (or even colonial) perspective or role.
Another issue that that entails awareness and sensitivity is the use of language. Be aware of terms that you may have used all your life, never causing offense, but which take on different significance in your new setting. Something as seemingly innocent as naming one of our Centers the North American Center can be an issue when we actually have another Center (the Latin American Center) which engages in the study of the North American region.
On a similar note, you may wish to consider issues of gender and language when doing some kinds of writing. In this Guidebook, for example, a FW student in the third person is referred to as "she," partly to wake people up, partly because the population of FW is predominantly female, and partly out of respect for other documents which have done so in the past. Other references in the third person vary: sometimes "he," sometimes "he/she," or even "they" (which has arguably become the neuter singular pronoun in English over the past fifty years or so).
In issues like this, of course, your own judgement is needed. Language is not the root of this kind of sensitivity, attitude and action are closer to the mark.
Workshop Discussion Sparks
- The role of a foreigner in the local environment
- the role of FW in the local environment
- the role of a foreigner and of FW in terms of the social issues with which we are deeply concerned
Inspired and Creative
- Organize role-playing sessions with the help of the faculty?
Rigorous Training
AAAAAGGGHHHH!
See Also
Contribute to the Portfolio Resource Guide!!!
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