diversity Tag

Posts tagged 'diversity'

International Women’s Day 2016

1 in 3 women will be raped, beaten or abused in her lifetime - Amnesty International

Recently, I was asked to take part as a facilitator in the 2016 International Women’s Day at Griffith University, which was organized by a very good friend of mine, Wendy Flannery, from the amazing organization Believing Women for a Culture of Peace.

Do you ever think you know a lot about something and then discover that what you thought was very far from the way things really are?

I have been involved in diversity education for many years. During those years, I was convinced that I was aware of all the challenges women faced, so I was very surprised to discover just how unaware I was.

During the event, there was an introduction to the declaration for the dignity and human rights for women. We had speakers from different religions and they all declared that we are far away from having fair and equal rights for women.

The shocking bit for me was statistics of women’s position in the world, which highlighted the need for serious social change.

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I am not Black, You are not White and We are not Labels

I have been doing diversity education for the last ten years. The more people I saw, the more I realized how important this work was. For some unknown reason, people like labels. They think that labels help them define the world. I believe they shrink the world, limit thinking and restrict our range of experiences.

When I was 21, I was greatly inspired by one of my psychology teachers at university. She came to class and asked us, “Who are you?” At first, we thought she was weird. Well, she was weird (at least this is how we labeled her), but the more we discussed this topic, the more we realized that this weird question was all about the labels we put on others to help us define ourselves.

In one of the classes, she asked me, “Ronit, who would you be if your parents gave you a different name?” I looked at her, unsure if I had understood the question. I was puzzled for a while, and then said, “Me!”

In our psychology classes, we discussed identity and how the labels we give to everything around us limit the range of the experiences we have. At one stage, she told us to move around the room based on our labels. She asked all females to move to one side, all males to the other. Then, she moved us around based on other labels we are given in everyday life, like height, age, race, religion, the area of the country where we grew up, etc. It didn’t take us long to realize that labels divide us into groups, and when this is done, it is very easy to control us.

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Why Anti-Bullying Videos are Useless (even Bad)

Stop Bullying Now! written on a stop sign

A friend of mine, who is an author and writing about teaching kids empathy and compassion, asked me for my opinion on the role of anti-bullying videos in shifting attitudes towards bullying. Here is my answer.

I believe that many anti-bullying campaigns may reinforce bullying, rather than helping to stop or prevent bullying. Most of the anti-bullying videos show stories of victims being bullied, feeling bad, sad and rejected, and how a change of attitude makes them feel better.

My question is, “If kids (and not just kids) could put themselves in their victims’ shoes, they would never bully anyone. What is the point of showing them a video that tries to put them in others’ shoes?”

Well, there is no point!

People bully because they are weak and they do not have any other way that they could think of that could give them strength and power other than bullying others. They have seen someone around them do it – someone has done it to them or they have watched thousands of videos in which verbal, physical or emotional bullying is just a common (“normal”) thing and part of everything they see around them. So by showing another video of bullying, we show them how common it is, instead of showing them that the opposite is more common (“normal”). Campaigns need to focus on good relationships, caring and sharing to give kids the message that “kind = strong” and that “bully = weak”.

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Love without Boundaries: Watch this Inspiring Video

Love without boundaries - black man and pregnant white woman holding heart shaped hands

We learn about love from the second we are born. We are not always aware of the love around us, but it is always there – love without boundaries.

Some say that love is the energy that feeds us throughout life – it is food for our soul, and without it, we are doomed to die.

There have been many songs written about love. One of the interesting things about it is that most people learn to appreciate the love they took for granted when it is under threat or when it is tested.

On the flip-side, there is hatred and discrimination. For the last 8 years, I have been very active in the field of diversity education. I was sad to discover that there was a lot of discrimination and labeling, lots of bullying and bias towards others. And this was coming from children who simply cannot deal with others’ being different from them.

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Life According to the Native American Code of Ethics

Through my work in diversity education over the past 7 years, I have taken part in many debates and conversations about religion, ethics, morals, values, and our role as parents and educators in instilling them in our children. Many people see conflicts between the different ethnic groups, religious groups, tribes and cultures. Personally, the more closely I look at it, the more I understand that these different groups have more commonalities than differences.

In life, you get what you focus on. If you focus on differences, you will see the conflict between cultures. If you focus on commonalities, you will see similarities and how we are all connected.

Recently, I had a chance to read the Native American Code of Ethics. This code has survived for thousands of years. This is probably one of the oldest cultural codes that still exist today. There is evidence that the indigenous American people migrated from Siberia over 11,000 years ago. Yes, 11,000 years ago! Can you imagine how long that is?!

To put it in perspective, Judaism is about 5,000 years old, Buddhism is about 2,500 years old, Christianity is about 2,000 years old, and Islam is about 1,500 years old. Meanwhile, the Native American tradition goes back 11,000 years. Fortunately, if you go deep into each of these belief systems, you will find very similar codes of ethics.

My work in personal development is in the service of all these codes of ethics. I believe that regardless of which one we follow, if each and every one of us strives to live by them, to the best of our ability, we will have a better world. Striving is the most important part. Eventually, if you keep going in the right direction, you will get there.

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Ronit Celebrating Diversity by Challenging Teachers’ Cultural Thinking

As teachers, we like to think of ourselves as very open-minded. We model this attitude and believe that open-minded teachers can raise open-minded students and when the mind is open, the possibilities are endless. Together with our students’ parents, we are the most important social agents in our society. Our best tool is to believe and be true to what we want to create. If we want to raise a whole generation of open-minded kids who are accepting, appreciating and celebrating diversity, we must first be living proof of what we want to teach and be able to ‘walk the talk’.

The first time I questioned my own open-mindedness was long before I became a teacher. I was 16 years old, and Israel and Egypt signed their famous peace contract. To start the official ‘relationship’ between the two countries, it was decided to send selected youth from both sides to meet each other. As a very ‘open-minded’ teen, I was chosen to be part of this unique delegation.

The Egyptian teens came to visit us in Israel. We had a great time together and one evening, the Israeli teens decided to visit the Egyptian teens in their room to see what they were doing. We knocked on the door and they were very happy to see us. They welcomed us in and we sat in one of the rooms and just watched them. We were completely shocked.

Why shocked? you might ask.

Because they acted like… teens. Same as us. They were listening to the same music we were listening to, their boys ‘hit on girls’, just like ours did, and their girls responded in exactly the same coy way as ours did. I vividly remember the question that popped into my head ‘What were you expecting?’

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Language Acquisition: Do Young children Need a Second Language?

For years, people have been researching the acquisition of languages. One aspect mentioned in some of this research is the distinction between Primary (“mother tongue”) and Secondary language. I believe this distinction is essential for maximizing the power of learning another language.

Primary and secondary languages are stored in different places in the brain and through a different process. First, second and third primary languages are learned by creating patterns from a load of seemingly random information, while secondary languages are learned by using the primary languages as reference and building a “translation net” to map the secondary language back to them.

Experts still argue about the critical age for forming primary languages, but they all estimate it to end between the ages of 7 and 12. This leaves the early childhood educators to deal with this important channel of education in the most critical age – the early years.

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How Can Parents with Different Religions Raise Kids Successfully? (Q&A)

The question about two parents with different religions or belief systems raising kids has become very relevant in our society today. The world is much more multicultural and there are many mixed couples finding love and wondering about the impact of this on their kids.

My eldest daughter, Eden, is getting married in 2 months to her now-boyfriend, Sandy. Eden and Sandy are a gorgeous couple and we are very happy they found each other. No pressure or anything, but we are also very much looking forward to them having kids.

The interesting thing is that Eden and Sandy come from two different cultural backgrounds, different languages and different faiths. Many of our family members and friends have been wondering about the “chance” of such a relationship succeeding and the difficulty in raising kids.

I cannot say exactly what will happen for Sandy and Eden. I am not a fortune teller after all. I am, however, the state director of a not for profit organization that provides education on diversity and advocates for religious and cultural tolerance. I strongly believe in this work.

In some way, Eden and Sandy have more similarities than many other couples do. For example, they are both migrants, both their parents are still together, they both value different cultures, they both speak languages other than English and appreciate others who speak other languages, they are both kind and accepting of others.

I think the “chance” of a successful relationship depends not on the number of differences between them but in their ability to appreciate and take advantage of the similarities.

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Ronit’s Tips for Developing Empathy

As the state director of the Together for Humanity Foundation, I meet teachers and students to promote diversity and good relations and I believe empathy is the key. If we all had more empathy, the world would be a much better place. With more empathy, families would be happier – there would be fewer divorces and fewer problems with children.

In my work with parents and teachers, I am often asked about empathy and how others develop it. I have decided to combine all the suggestions here. If you are working with children, if you in relationship and would like to develop your own empathy, or if you want to encourage empathy in your students or children, I hope you can make good use of this list.

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Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover

Over the past 5 years, I have been working as the director of a not-for-profit organization dealing with diversity education. I have had the honor of working with over 20,000 kids in primary and high school and taking them through a process that helps them realize that underneath the look, the clothes, the skin color, the gender, the religion, the language and accent, there are amazingly wonderful people.

I ask all my student to fill out a feedback form. The form asks them what message they took from the workshop/presentation/activity. I have received over 20,000 feedback forms with amazing things kids write. More often than not, they write “don’t judge a book by its cover”.

In my workshops, the opportunity often presents itself to discuss our own self-judgment. I bring up the fact that it can be damaging to consider ourselves inferior based on what we look like on the outside. To illustrate my point, I share the water story. It is a great way to understand what is important in life and why what we have inside is much more important than the outside.

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