Discussing stereotypes and classifications of people can be a rather touchy and offensive topic.  I grew up in a very integrated area with people from various cultures, so I feel as though I have a pretty good sense of diversity which I feel makes me a little more understanding and accepting than some others.  However, I am not perfect (although sometimes I like to think my thoughts and opinions are all perfect, it is rarely the case).  I still have weak moments in which I categorize people and apply stereotypes when I should know better.  For instance, the people where I am from are very much city people - they keep to themselves (you almost always see people walking the streets with headphones in or hand-free headset for their phone), they suffer from what I call tunnel vision (they typically divert their eyes to avoid eye contact of people passing by), and they walk in fast forward (trying to get from location A to location B as quick as possible).  It is easy to pass judgments from a quick glance at somebody (even in the quick glance moment of passing city walkers), however, our likelihood of being correct in our judgment is very unlikely.  Putting people into these categories in our minds is very dangerous.  We may subconsciously make assumptions about their individual character or lifestyle.  In doing so, we may pass by opportunities to get to know some great people and cause great emotional hurt to them by treating them differently than we would someone we classify more similar to ourselves.  Another one of the problems of categorizing people is that people do not easily fit into one particular category, thus we have taken away a part of who they are by either forcing them into one category or another.  We may also treat these people differently, but in reality people are just people and deserve to be treated equally.  I want to share an experience that I found to be hurtful and eye opening.  I was walking through an expensive boutique in the quaint downtown of where my grandparents live.  I was shopping around all of the little shops near the river with my mom and grandma when this beautiful window display dragged us into the shop.  We walked in and said hello to the employees, yet we received no response.  We were dressed normal, but it was obvious we were very out of place.  Now, I would consider my family a very honest and good deed-doing kind of family, but yet these upper class women followed us around as if we were waiting on our chance to pocket everything in sight.  It was so degrading and just goes to show how they were too quick to pass judgment onto us.  The problem with this experience is that we were categorized and made out to be something we weren't, and thus we felt offended for being mistreated when they didn't even give us the opportunity to show them the type of people we actually are.  This weeks lesson really opened up my eyes to how we should not be so quick to stereotype or classify people and redirect our thinking when those thoughts come up.  I have a lot I can improve upon, no change takes place over night, but I know that we can make a difference a little at a time.  It is my hope, that people will learn to be more accepting of people different from themselves by learning to appreciate the differences in people and by standing up against stereotyping, even if it means standing alone.  

The Effects of Role Playing

When done properly, we can understand the concepts demonstrated in role playing.  In class this week, we had three students act as a family unit: mother, father, and daughter.  We also had our teacher, Brother Williams, act as the marriage counselor.  We watched them role play as a family unit who had been dealing with their daughter suffering from bad fits of asthma.  We learned that instead of letting one parent take care of a situation (in this case, the mother being the one who usually calms the daughter when she was suffering an asthma attack), when both parents worked together as a unit, the daughter felt safer and had less frequent asthma attacks.  I think it is an interesting concept that children have the ability to sense a strain or a stronger bond between the parents having an effect on the environment, becoming less stressful and more safe.  In this scenario,  the parents loved each other and had a good relationship, but because they were separating responsibilities as parents and not necessarily working together, there was a disconnect in the family structure that they could not identify on their own in regards to what was causing the frequent asthma attacks.  Role playing in the classroom environment helped me to understand the importance of changing the family's habits instead of changing one family members habits.  When the family works together to fix a problem, the effects are greater and last much longer, where as, changing one family member's habits only lasts for so long before they revert back into their old habits. 

Slow first week!

     Well, we're just getting into the class routine and this week does not give me a lot to choose from to discuss. We mostly settled into and got a feel for the way the semester is going to go, but I do think there is something interesting we talked about and that is the challenges of research.  One challenge is that, believe it or not, the recorder of the information does not always site a source properly, thereby bending and twisting the true cited meaning.  Shocking... yes, I know.  But now you see, I am a very gullible person and I find it difficult to sort through research because like a child, I believe everything I hear.  Now, my argument to that is that Christ says "be like unto a child", so really, I hold the secret to our Earthly life. ;)  
     Okay so I am sort of joking, but in all seriousness, how is it that people like me find reliable sources that we do not have to read and feel tricked?  Well, let's start with staying away from Google!  Personally, I am not a fan of Bing so I will always choose Google when searching for something online.  With that being said, stick with scholarly journals for a start.  Research is complicated and quite the headache!  I offer my advice this evening, if you face the situation this semester that you need to find reliable research, I recommend two Tylenol, a large glass of water, relaxing music, a trip to the scholarly journals in the library, and followed by a little reward to yourself!  :)  
     I hope everyone starts their semesters by being able to keep their focus and keep the stress levels down!  

First week kick off!

Well, today makes for my first post as a blogger... ever.  I will be blogging once a week for my Family Relations class on different topics we discuss in class and I hope to get some feedback too! :)