Ariana Boudreau

Raudonis

Teacher Prep 2

10/24/18

Cultural Competence Reflection

Becoming culturally competent is a process that people work on their entire life. Throughout this

unit I have started to gain more of an understanding of this process. Before someone can become

culturally competent they must first understand what culture is. Culture is the shared values,

traditions, norms, customs, symbols, arts, history, folklore, ways of living, and institutions of a

group of people. In order for anyone to accept others culture they need to know their own

cultural identity. There are three parts of someone’s cultural identity; knowledge (thoughts/

awareness) , behavior (actions), and attitude (values/ beliefs/ judgement). When I think of my

cultural identity i think of my race, age, and appearance. These characteristics are on the top of

the cultural iceberg. This iceberg consists of three layers with the first being based around

physical characteristics. The second layer has things like education, religion, and marital status.

The lowest layer is nationality, health, hobbies, and political stance. I never knew that there was

levels to culture. My whole life I have been going through believing that everything just blended

together. I never realized that some parts of culture are deeper than other.

Stereotyping is something that all people have done before. Sometimes I do this and I don’t even

realize it. Stereotypes are just an idea, prejudice is the feeling you get after, and discriminating is

the action. This is a circle that keeps going around if people don’t know how to stop it. I’ll admit

I have have thoughts where I don’t think I’ll like someone because they’re very quiet so I don’t

bother talking to them. This is an example of having a stereotype and discrimination. Lately I
have been starting to be more accepting to everyone and taking chances doing things outside of

my comfort zone.

I have always wanted to travel the world but never thought about how important it is to

understand that different places do things differently. I might not understand the language , laws,

or religion but if I am aware of the differences in culture and accepting of them. I’ve always

wanted to travel to volunteer to help young children in school or just anyone struggling in

another country. I love learning about people's’ different ways of living and being empathetic

about others. For example, last year I went to Puerto Rico to get on a cruise. My family and I

spent one day walking about the city, going in local shops, and visiting historical figures. I had

so much fun learning about how other people live and getting to experience how their everyday

life was.

Cultural competence is a very important things that all teachers need to have. This can be shown

by valuing diversity in the classroom. No one has the same cultural identity and this can be used

in the classroom to celebrate people's’ uniqueness. I don’t think I will be perfect at adapting to

diversity when I first start teaching but my goal is to be aware of it and try m best. Since cultural

competence is a process, it is something that will only get better as I grow older. Another thing

teachers need to do is honestly assess themselves. It is important that not only just teachers but

everyone assesses themselves on how they are treating other people. By having cultural

knowledge teachers and students will have more success in the classroom.