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Diversity Workshop Enrichment Activity 2004 NASA SHARP Program California State University, Los Angeles Presented by: Tyler Huynh Reported by: Autumn Anderson July 1, 2004
All students were present on June 1, 2004 for the diversity workshop. Tyler introduced the session and himself. He explained how diversity is in all aspects of out lives, and that culture is among the most important things to learn when dealing with public relations. He had arranged in the beginning, a poster, that each student was to write their name, religion, place of birth, number of siblings, number of languages spoken, favorite quote, and hobbies. Each student wrote in a different color to define the answers of origin in this messy attempt to record all information. Students then took time to study the poster and read/learn about fellow students. Tyler then spoke again about the importance of culture and respect. The next activity was a definition of culture. We were split into groups; counting off by fours there ended up being about 6 per group. Each group was given a marker and a piece of paper. Our instructions: define culture. Most answers were similar, stating that culture was a combination of many attributes. Tyler then uncovered a poster at the front of the room that gave the dictionary's definition. He continued by saying that there is no TURE definition of culture, but that it is what the interpretation makes of it. Culture is different for everyone.
Another activity was what I like to call the “Hands Game”. Tyler told us all to stand in a close group. We were then instructed to close our eyes. He led us to different parts of the room and paired us up with different individuals. We then held hands, trying the whole time to learn who this person was. The game was set up to be purposely unsuccessful. We had no clue who's hands we were holding. That was the whole idea. Tyler asked us several questions while we were all very silent. The asked us about gender, race, color, religion, family origin, favorites, etc. All were impossible to tell. In the end, all people are people, and that's what we are supposed to know. Sometimes humans take their intelligence to the next level, and actually set ourselves up for destruction in having prejudices. If we program ourselves to believe in stereotypes, then we program ourselves not to learn further of individuals. We miss out on so much that what we never see can actually make our lives very narrow.
To take a look at what kind of people we had in our group, we played a line game. All students were asked to make a line, and take five or so steps forward when a fact applied to them. Tyler read out different lines such as “Step forward if you were raised by a single parent”, or “Step forward if you have siblings that are not 'whole'”. These factors applied to people regardless of race, color, nationality, etc. We learned that things happen to all kinds of people and they happen regardless of discriminating attributes.
When we got comfortable with participating in activities, Tyler paired us up and asked us to say two things about ourselves that could be a racial indicator, in other words, say two facts about your race that are unique. I were then asked to share what we had leaned. After reporting in a circle style manor, Tyler asked us to come up with some misconceptions stereotypes about our races, and share what they are, or instance, I told my partner that some people see me as “white trash” because I am of the white ethnicity and I live in a trailer-park. We discussed how these misconceptions arise out of ignorance and what to do about it. This leads us into out next activity:
What to do when faced with prejudice. We were again asked to come up with different was that we were to handle a situation if a stereotype were involved. We were split into groups and given a piece of paper. We had a few minutes to write how people would react to this situation. Answers were written of everything from condemning people for their behavior to teaching them of their ignorance. This made us all step back and take a look at how little we know about each other and how easy it is to play upon misconceptions.
Tyler ended the session by giving a talk on how diverse out world is, and how we will encounter this throughout our whole lives. It is better to be open minded to all, and not judge. Ignorance is a breading ground for prejudice, and we must learn to step above this.
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