Learning, Recognizing and Accountability

I believe in having an open mind, to allow myself to learn and understand where people come from and what they’ve experienced in order to know how I can help and make a better change. Freire and Horton go into a discussion looking at the relationship between the concepts of practice, theory and knowledge. Throughout their discussion they go into explaining how you have to understand the importance of the way people think, speak, act and then understand the experience, the practice of the people, because without practice there is no knowledge. Horton also goes along with saying that, “practice in itself is not its theory, it creates knowledge, but it is not its own theory”(98). It is very important to also remember when working with clients or community partners, that today’s knowledge will not be the same tomorrow, because things could change such as reality, therefore “Theory also does the same. It’s not something stabilized or immobilized”(101). Without even realizing it sometimes, we are learning something new everyday, through our educators or simply through experience in the world, through work or service trips. So what he is saying is that experience and practice in itself is not a theory, but reading or hearing a conversation that was passed down, to get theoretical illumination of certain situations would be a theory, if it gets people to say, “Look maybe here is the explanation of my obstacle”(99).

In terms of my own education, I think looking at this relationship between these three concepts is important because we do need some theory from our educators and hearing others’ stories in order to understand and gain knowledge of what we are doing and why we are doing it in a certain way, and to speak up for what we believe in because there won’t be the kind of change we want, if we don’t speak up. And from there, go into the world, into our jobs or our service learning community partners, with some knowledge and be able to practice what we’ve learned but also not to forget that we still may not even know everything or how to handle every situation that gets placed on us, and there is nothing wrong with not knowing, because we learn new things each day through our experiences, and not knowing gives us the ability to ask questions and open our minds even more. I am very grateful to have had the opportunities of going on service trips that have taken me out of my comfort zone but helped me learn and care about other issues aside from my own. 3 years ago I went on a service trip to Arizona and Nogales, Mexico where we got to listen to women at a shelter tell their stories of where they came from and what brought them to the shelter, and it was heartbreaking to hear these personal stories because they had gone through so much, just because they wanted to better their life and didn’t have the help they needed to do so. I also went on a service trip to San Diego and Tijuana last March, to talk about immigration and the Border Patrol, but also volunteered at a food pantry and kitchen to feed the underserved and also went to a small school in Tijuana to play with the children and get to know them. Luckily, I spoke Spanish, so it was easy for me to break that language barrier but for other peers it might’ve been a challenge to communicate. But overall, it was a great experience to see how different peoples’ lives were, even though it made me sad, refleting back on the power imbalance between us that I noticed, and how little they have, yet they are so grateful for what they do have, making me realize that everything I have really isn’t important. These two trips just reminded me that I should not take things for granted because I am very fortunate for all of the opportunities I have been given and this great education I have. These kids brought out so much joy in me and made me realize how important it is just being with people that love you and appreciating the little things in life. I also felt that I learned a lot more through my experience that I don’t think I could’ve learned by looking at the news or learning in class, because there are always two sides to a story.

In regards to Neutrality in education, I do believe that even though neutrality is just following the crowd and being what the system asks us to be, I think us as educators and learners, our purpose is to come in and teach or learn but also challenge the mind and look at how to make change based on what we hear or see and what we stand for. There won’t be any sort of change if everyone just follows the crowd and agrees with the same things and functions like the system tells them to function. Paulo even mentions how, “it is impossible for education to be neutral, educators have to confront some practical problems… This role is a problem for the teachers. It has to do with their competency, with their political clarity, with their consistency and their understanding of the very process”(104). This idea that Paulo brings up, opened my eyes to realize that when looking back to middle school and high school, I noticed that teachers would avoid bringing up politics, being neutral about where they stood about certain social issues, whether it was out of respect or because they may have been told not to speak out about these issues. But it is such a change from education in college where almost every class gives people the chance to state their opinions on certain issues and tries to apply ethics and even cultural humility principles into what we learn, so that when we go out to work with different communities, we have that knowledge, awareness, respect and understanding for those communities that may come from a different background than what we know, which ties into the principles of Cultural Humility.

Cultural Humility has an ultimate goal of there being a sense of equity, and like said in the video, “Recognition and Respect for others’ cultural priorities and practices is facilitated… by initial and ongoing processes that engender self-knowledge.” This idea incorporates the three principles of a life long commitment of learning and critically self-reflecting, recognizing and challenging the power imbalances, and having institutional accountability. People have histories and their identities are rooted from that. I understand that each of us are different and that each of us come from different backgrounds and social classes, and I know that I don’t know everything, not even everything about my own culture and background, but I am willing to learn through my educators, peers and experiences, and it is a notion of mine that we should all keep an open mind and be open to the idea of challenging experiences that may take us out of our comfort zone in order to better understand who someone is and where they come from, or become more knowledgeable about a certain situation or social issue to better help with those problems.

Principles of Cultural Humility were implemented to help make a change in the way we communicate with each other. The Rodney King beating by 15 LA police officers who were caught on camera, that later sparked a riot, became a symbol of police brutality in 1991. This event really prompted the founders to create these concepts because it inspired a lot of conversation and soul searching between a lot of people to seek ways on how to have these conversations with better results. The video also discussed the lack of cultural humility and the injustice in the health system and institutional settings, in which different health providers spoke out about the unjust behavior and power structures, based on their position and experiences. I think it was and is still important for people to speak out about the lack of cultural humility and also lack of cultural competency, to prevent families or patients from feeling like they aren’t being taken care of in a respectful way. It gives hospitals or educational institutions the opportunity to bring different community groups in to teach based on the composition of the faculty and patients.

When connecting these injustice events and cultural humility to what clinician, Verghese came to realize about his job not only as a clinician, but also as a human being, he realized that he wanted to reconcile the person in front of him. He knew that in this moment he was of power, because he was providing care in the best way he could to all of these men and women. He would also ask each patient where they spent the last five days to get a better sense of where they were coming from and what they had gone through, to emphasize with each patient. He felt their sadness. Verghese said, “And I felt the same helplessness, knowing that the illness here was inextricably linked to the bigger problem of homelessness, disenfranchisement and despair.” He knew there was more to the problem that what he was looking at in front of him, and he apologized to his patients because that is all he could really say or feel, sorry. He practiced cultural humility, self-reflecting on who he is and what his purpose is, but also recognizing and challenging the power imbalances that there was between himself and his patients, but never wanted to make them feel like he was more than them, because he felt the same helplessness they felt. When leaving, he came to a realization that, “the years have shown that there is no armor. There never was. The willingness to be wounded may be all we have to offer.”

In looking at the connection and impact of Cultural humility with education and neutrality that is discussed in Freire and Horton’s dialogue and the video we watched, you can see the connections of life long commitment of learning and self-reflecting, recognizing and changing the power imbalances, and having institutional accountability. Both Freire and Horton, and the educators who spoke in the video made points about the injustices in our education system, and also how important it is to recognize and understand what your voice means in the world and as an educator. Horton says, “I don’t believe in the kind of education that works in favor of humanity… it does not exist in “humanity. It is an abstraction. Humanity for me is Mary, Peter, John, very concrete. Then I need to know in whose favor I am trying to work. It means the political clarity that the educator has to have”(101). He explains that educators should know what they stand for, what their purpose is, and what they are trying to change, and along with that comes understanding, and learning about ideas or issues out of one’s comfort level and having accountability. In the video, Metro Health Curriculum Director, Savita Malik tells her story about her first experience with Cultural Humility from a young age, and how it came from a place of invisibility and suppressing who she was as a woman of color, feeling like she had to hide who she was when she was out so she could fit in, and then being all about her culture when she was at home. Not until she became an educator herself she realized that she could acknowledge her power and privilege in an “I gotta check myself” kind of way but also in the same respect being able to say that as a woman of color she still has something important to say. I believe that educators should all be culturally humble, in being open to learning about other cultures, races, backgrounds, to give everyone a sense of reality of everything you don’t know even about your own culture sometimes. By being culturally humble, it would give the opportunity for students and others around you to feel safe and welcomed.

In thinking of Cultural Humility and how I could practice the principles within my community partner experience, I believe that by digging deeper into the mission and what Canal Alliance stands for and who and how they want to stand up for the people they work with, is something I could do in order to gain a better sense of what and why I am doing what I am doing, in order to better help this population of people. I want to focus on examining the power, privilege and social domination, because our race, gender, and class differentiates us from others and often cuts us off from certain opportunities in life, creating this inequity, which I don’t want anyone to feel. I want to better understand the people I’ll be helping, their background, their history, their stories, their situation so I can empathize and respect who they are and make their experience feel welcomed and make sure not to put up a language barrier. Just by being there, doing what I can to make a difference in someones life is what I can hope for, just like Charlotte Change and Elnaz Eilkhani said in the Cultural Humility video, “It’s really important to show up, and take time from your life and show that you care about the community and be there… Be open to learning all the time even if it makes you uncomfortable.”