Rainy Day and New Strategies

Grabbing breakfast before heading to class!

Our class started with yesterday’s review. Dean Almandrez continued with details on dominant and subordinated group. We heard voices of many other students regarding what power and success meant. Most of us had same idea on what being successful meant. The view of society on being successful means to have a high living standard whereas for me, being successful is to be happy with anything you do.

Dean Rose had been called as guest speaker to talk about public speaking. Students from Immigration and Social Justice also joined us. Firstly, she gave her definition of leadership; process of influencing other, helping what group needs in order to accomplish goals. She taught us what strategies we will need for being a leader. We were instructed to get in group and practice what she had taught. When someone is talking, we need to respect them and listen to them carefully. When my partner, Spencer was talking about the most challenging event from last year, I listened and nodded to pass on information to her that I was listening. Second time, I talked about most challenging event from last year and she listened to me and asked me questions. Asking a question suggested that she was listening to me and was interested in the conversation. Third time, we switched partner and we had to talk about something that will be challenging next year. While I talked, Crystal was nodding, questioning and repeating what I said which gave a flow to the conversation. In the end, Crystal summarized what I had said and it showed that she was paying attention to what I had said. 

As a class, we discussed about feedbacks we should give to people and those could either be negative or positive. Any feedback would be best when one uses “I” statement and keeps it short. Often, there are people who are rude or act in certain way so in such situation it would be good idea to use I statement and talk to them. Also, sometimes we want to appreciate someone and using I statement would be a good idea. Dean Rose’s ending was pretty strong. She talked about Malala and Windsor and how their leadership changed something. Even after getting shot, Malala (16 years old) is still standing up for what she thinks is right and Windsor challenged the idea of society in front of media and the world.

Rainy Day

During our lunch break, it was raining. Since, it is pretty hot in here, I had thought the rain would be warm too but it was not. Bay area often had sudden strong wind which would blow the umbrella but it was not same here, wind was blowing but with small force. After exploring somewhat of Brown in rain, we walked back to class. We had to present on a given topic with our group. My group talked about Institutional and Cultural Socialization. Once we step out of our house, we go to school, college, church or office where we learn about different ideas and beliefs that might contradict with ideas taught at our house. Thus, it is important to balance these beliefs out. 

Discussing with one another

Dean played a video from “What would you do?” which was about discrimination toward Muslims. One lady with hijab walks inside the store to purchase bread but the owner refuses to give her any addressing that she is Muslim and is not an American. Even though, the owner and lady were acting, customers were not. Many of the customers agreed with the owner whereas few supported the lady. Due to the information that media shows, we start to have a single story about what the religion Muslim is about and how Muslim people are. If some kind of violent activity happens and the traitor turns out to be Muslim, media highlights more about the religion which passes on negative information about the religion and people related to the religion. I was not much surprised because I have seen the same kind of discrimination in High School where people pass on some negative comments on someone’s religion. Although, people in United States are very diverse, not everyone’s mind seem to be diverse enough. There were few people standing against the discrimination going on but most of them kept quiet and walked away. 

Women and Leadership has been introducing me to topics that I had never thought about and helped me build the ideas along the way. In just two days of class, I have learned about various issues that lie in world. As a global citizen, it is necessary to address these issues of gender, ethnicity, religion or race discrimination so that we can be able to contribute to change it. I think today’s class helped us address the issues and we were able to think critically about it.