I do not think that valuing diversity comes easily. People are so used to the familiar that they tend to stay away from being mixed and diverse. We tend to group off with the same, because if feels comfortable and easier to relate to. An example would be at school. Usually, people tend to gravitate towards their own kind, but that doesn't necessarily just race. People may be attracted to age, language, or sex. It's very rare to see a group of kids come together (specifically middle or elementary) where kids will socialize and have a group of friends that's mixed with boys and girls, spanish only speakers and english only speakers, who belong to different economic classes. So, to say that valuing diversity comes easily, it would be a hard sell. It doesn't just happen in schools, but in the work force as well. Diversity comes easier in work because we don't really have a choice of who we work with, so it becomes easier to talk to them or form groups. But, people in the Bay Area usually have a diverse group of friends, so it's not like we live in a totally segregated society, because diversity is actually very common in the most of this area.
A suggestion i would make to enhance a groups ability to value diversity would be to do more team building exercises, that allows people to have to work together. Instead of focusing on exterior values such as race, sex, or physical build, it requires you to use your inner strengths. I think people tend to judge people on what they see on the exterior, that they forget that what makes people valuable to a group is what they can bring internally. I think that when we use team building exercises, we can build stronger bonds and have more trust in people and then maybe we could value diversity a little bit more.
The suggestion that you made about groups doing more team building exercises was both a great perspective on group dynamics and also just a great suggestion overall! Once I read this in your post, it made me think about my small group experiences and how something as small as eating lunch together to doing a quick challenge aside from the project really brought us together and gave us a better idea in terms of our personalities and capabilities. To reiterate what you mentioned in your posting, internal strengths are what should be really valued rather than external. Once we recognize this concept, we can truly achieve diverse dynamics within small groups.
ReplyDeleteTo me I also feel valuing diversity isn’t as easy as it seems. For me when I first started attending San Jose State, it was hard for me to accept and get used to the diversity here on campus. As of now it is something I really value, but at first I didn’t really want to mix with anybody because they were all types of people that were unfamiliar to me. For the first two weeks or so I always went back home to Oakland, Ca to hang with friends and be around people I could always relate to. It wasn’t until my mother forced me to not come home for a couple of weeks that I was forced to socialize with others on campus and in my dorms, that I realized that the diversity I had a chance to experience on campus was a blessing and something I was taking for granted.
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