A scenario to ponder

This week our professor at Walden University has given us an interesting yet challenging scenario to ponder and respond to. Here it is:

Imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

 

My response:

The three items I would choose to take with me are our family bible, our family photo album and my heirloom soup pot. I would take the family bible because our faith is an important part of our family culture. I would take our family photo album because it holds our family history and helps us remember our ancestors and the sacrifices they made to get our family to where we are now. I would take the pot because it has been passed down through several family generations and no matter where the family was or how little they had, they were always able to make something out of basically nothing to survive. A hot meal simmering on the stove has always been a symbol of home. It is an item to remember that perseverance is the key to get out of any situation. As we learned from Keat, Strickland and Marinak (2009), photographs and other artifacts can serve as a communication tool that helps convey to others the people, places and things that are important to us and helps us explain to others our lives. from Keat, Strickland and Marinak (2009) further explain that these items can also help to correct misunderstandings that may occur when people apply stereotypes to the reality of others. Therefore, if I were to be informed that I would have to give up any of these items I would be incredibly angered, disappointed, and frustrated to say the least. I would feel this way because people hold on to things that are dearest to them to help them get through difficult situations. Unfortunately, when we have to flee our homes and settle elsewhere, especially in a foreign country, we hold on to our culture as much as possible to maintain our sanity. When we cannot do this and have to assimilate into the mainstream culture immediately, we lose a part of ourselves. We lose a part of our identity (Laureate Education Inc., 2011), which can also lead to negative emotions that there is something wrong with us because our former way of life is unacceptable all of a sudden. As a result, we will always feel that part of us is missing, and that we are not whole. Loss of language, religion, or other way of life would leave us quite disoriented.

I am interested to read about what items my colleagues would choose this week and why, because I know from reading our class discussion postings last week and this week and from reading our introductions in the student lounge that we all define ourselves a little bit differently. Each colleague seems to have a different culture, even if we share the same race or ethnicity. We have differences in the way we live, simply because of the family culture where we were raised. These differences are not bad, they just express the many different ways to be human. Here is a quote I found in our reading this week that I have been thinking about ever since I read it: "Every day, in every action, we express our particular group culture and our individual relationship to our culture." (Derman-Sparks and Edwards, 2010, p. 55)

 

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

Keat, J. B., Strickland, M. J., & Marinak, B. A. (2009). Child voice: How immigrant children enlightened their teachers with a camera. Early Childhood Education Journal, 37(1), 13--21.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Family cultures: Dynamic interactions [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu