{"id":22992,"date":"2019-05-17T09:19:16","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T16:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=22992"},"modified":"2019-05-17T09:20:12","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T16:20:12","slug":"cross-cultural-sensitivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/cross-cultural-sensitivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Cross Cultural Sensitivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having students come and spend weeks overseas gives our team an opportunity to shape those that desire to be used by God. Over the last eight or nine years we have seen a shift in the students that have come. When we began we had a list of rules and communication policies for the purpose of security and engagement. About 3 years ago we began to see a change in the students coming. They came with what seemed to be tunnel vision for what they wanted to do and what they decided were the rules. This small sampling of private school students does not define a whole generation of young people however we can mark a significant change in the way some engage the world and each other. University professors have told me that they see parents not so much as helicopter parents, having over their children, rather see them as snowplow parents, the flatten all obstacles in the students path. Concerning trips (local and abroad) the university is being encouraged to present options to parents (rather than students) since are the ones making the decisions for their students.<\/span>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As a middle class white male with college students that fall in the generation Z category, I sometimes have a cross cultural misunderstandings with my own kids. In the book, The Coddling of the American Mind, the authors write a hopeful challenge to young people, <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don\u2019t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you\u2019ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they\u2019re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>1<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I will admit that there is much in this book that I immediately reacted to, feeling justified to demean and bash all those crazy pampered violent students…but then I took a day to think about my own kids and how they would react to the stereotypes painted in this book.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

My daughter (on the left) at a women’s day rally<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

University students today seem to have been protected more than in generations past. Though some might call them privileged or caught up in a type of group thinking or even self centered, we can observe a generation of young people that want change. As the father of a 22 year old young woman that is passionate about injustice, I see that this passion is focused on changing the world. Many in this generation are inclusive of different races and cultures especially those perceived as marginalized. Haidt and Lukianoff agree when they say, \u201cIf we want to create welcoming, inclusive communities, we should be doing everything we can to turn down the tribalism and turn up the sense of common humanity.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>2<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/sup><\/span> How this done differs from each generation. This young generation seems to enjoy voicing their concerns about what they see as injustice. Though each generation will disagree with how we define the need for change, I do believe we all have the right to find our voice. Some critics of this book have said, \u201c..it seems clear that the authors want students not to speak up, but to sit down and shut up\u2014or, if they must speak, to speak decorously, in ways that won’t actually challenge or change institutions.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>3<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/sup><\/span> It does seem as though the examples written <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Haidt and Lukianoff<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\u2019s book call us to want a change in the way student protest. However one needs to ask is that the reason they use those examples? \u201cRather than trembling in fear of their students, maybe professors and op-ed writers would do better to try to learn from young people speaking out against sexual assault, racism, and indifference to suffering.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>4<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/sup><\/span> These new \u201cradical\u201d children are just the next generation to be passionate about changing the world. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is true that I have had some moments of frustration with what is called generation Z, even in conversations with my own children. I do not believe that the violence during protest is justified for this or any generation to promote their views. However I also believe that generation Z\u2019s passion for the often overlooked populations of this world is significant. We can not simply dismiss the passions of our young people simply because they are sensitive to depressive moments. Possibly this sensitivity has made them more aware and less callus to the brokenness of the systems of the world. When dealing cross culturally having the ability to develop a relationship with someone that we would not normally be drawn to moves both us and them toward a middle ground of conversation and understand. Just as we want to be heard, have value in what we do, and how we do so to does the internet generation. Let us be the ones that help bridge that cross cultural gap that is producing our frustration and theirs as well.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1<\/a> Lukianoff<\/span><\/span>, Greg and Jonathan Haidt,<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and <\/i><\/span><\/span> <\/i>Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure <\/i><\/span><\/span>(<\/span><\/span>UK: Allen Lane, 2018).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

2<\/a> Lukianoff<\/span><\/span>, Greg and Jonathan Haidt,<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and <\/i><\/span><\/span> <\/i>Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure <\/i><\/span><\/span>(<\/span><\/span>UK: Allen Lane, 2018).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

3<\/a> https:\/\/psmag.com\/education\/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind-is-sort-of-brainless<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u> accessed May 16, 2019<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

4<\/a> ibid<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having students come and spend weeks overseas gives our team an opportunity to shape those that desire to be used by God. Over the last eight or nine years we have seen a shift in the students that have come. When we began we had a list of rules and communication policies for the purpose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1529],"class_list":["post-22992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lukianoff-and-haidt","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22992"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23002,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22992\/revisions\/23002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}