Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Learning Letter/ Plan of Action Assignment

I have learned many new things thorough our readings in class this quarter. I felt that the books we read thought me a different thing and made me think about differently about the lives of others around the world and reflect on my own. I liked that in the course we did research about the background of the country or culture before we read the book, because I was able to get more familiar and prepare myself for the reading. I plan on doing the same the for the next time I read a book, and familiarize myself with it, because it will help me a lot with being able to understand it more. 

I learned about different cultures around the world and feel very grateful to have my Mexican culture as well as being part of the American culture, and way of life, because it by exploring more into different peoples lives through the readings I realized even more how blessed I am to live in America. Some of the issues I learned about I have read about, but never researched deeply about it, since it never affected me personally. For example, human trafficking, borders, or civil war are issues around the world that I knew existed, but never considered looking more into it because I felt there was no   need. But I have been reminded once again that we should know more about the issues happening in our world, because becoming more educated about what is happening in our world is very important and you never know when the information will come in handy.

I think that by being in this course I have learned more about what others think about culture, family, borders and geography. I’m not much of a talker, but I found myself talking more and being more open about what I learned, thought and felt about the books during our small groups in class. Though this class I was able to get to know how different everyone else is, just from the museum display project. I liked the small groups because I was able to learn a little more of what people actually thought and learned and help me learn more though their views. I learned a lot in the course with our book talks, and current event research, but the book I related to the most was "Crossing the Wire”. I was able to relate to it because of my family background, and though it I was able to know what Americans thought about immigrants here in the US, since I had never been comfortable talking about it. My classmates responses have been more comforting of being a minority at school and knowing that not everyone doesn’t like people like me, but its all about getting to know one another and I feel people are more understanding. Because like I learned they might not know anything about your culture until you present them to it. 


It was hard deciding to choose a plan of action to build onto what I have learned in class, but I have chosen to continue to read books about different cultures and do more research.  I like to read and think that this small action will make me more educated about the lives and cultures of people around the world.