I'll try to keep this short and just give you what came to me in reaction.
I'd just like to add one idea as it relates to diversity. I see Missie's
personal development as an explanation of what I term the development of
her personal culture. Learning about yourself, about your own culture is,
(IMHO) a necessary aspect to being able to understand and relate to pwople
with other cultual experineces. I've found that trying to "expand my
horizons" by learning about other cultures was difficult without a
grounding in how my personal culture had an impact on me; on what I
believe; on how I act and react to people and events around me, especially
when I interact with people of different cultural backgrounds. I've
discovered there are so many personal experiences (personal culture) that
effect how I react to others -- that effect my perceptions of others --
that it's difficult to imagine how anyone who doesn't understand where
they've come from (culturally speaking that is) can effectively identify
their personal cultural expectations that color their expectations for
interactions with others.
Ray
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Raymond M. Rose The Concord Consortium
37 Thoreau Street, Concord, MA 01742
Fax: 508.371.0696, Phone: 508.369.4367
http://www.concord.org
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