Cultural Diversity Retreat Essay

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Good morning and welcome to our first annual cultural diversity retreat for South Glen Elementary school. The school board funded this three-day event in preparation for our upcoming school year. We will be receiving students from a culture different than the American culture we, as staff and our present students, are accustomed. We will have 30 Bosnian immigrants. Each class will take approximately 6 to 7 new students to maintain the average class size of 25 students. This means 20% of the school will be comprised of the new students.
This three-day event is designed to explore culture diversity not present at South Glen Elementary School. I would like to give a brief overview before we break up into our individual groups. We will review …show more content…

What we are gearing towards is cultural competence. “Cultural competence is the ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures. In practice, both individuals and organizations can be culturally competent. “Culture” is a term that goes beyond just race or ethnicity. It can also refer to such characteristics as …disability, religion, income level, education, or profession (SAMHSA.gov, 2016).” Competency is defined as the compacity to function effectively. Cultural competency must occur on a continuum to be truly effective (Ritter, 2017). Throughout history, America has faced the challenges of connecting with people that are “not like us.” Our first hurdle is managing our own unconscious bias and assumptions by first identifying them. Secondly, be open to learning new cultures. Why? Like we teach our students, it is interesting to learn new things and it can be fun. This will stimulate the mind by forcing thinking in new terms. It will also build tolerance for cultures different then the ‘norm.’ Learning new cultures shows us there are more ways to do something than the way we ‘always’ do it. Most importantly, this will allow all our students at South Glen to have a competitive global edge. This will help them make informed decisions and acquire transferable skills that will be beneficial to them and will stay with them for