Presentation Day!!

Let me give you a taste of what our field work has been all about...
 



 

Something for the road...

 

During the delivery of the different presentations a topic was touched on with one of the groups, namely that clients should not be classified according to their race...

 

This got me thinking about the 'Beyond Cultural Competence' article that we were given at the beginning of the semester. According to the article, cultural competence can not be examined like other quantitative components. It is rather a type of thinking and knowing about oneself, others and the world.

 

So very often people only focus on the achievements in life which can be weighed up, compared and graded but there are so many qualities of great value that do not get as much recognition from society...I have to think of the 9 intelligences. They are all of utmost importance but unfortunately they are ranked in a so called hierarchy of importance in society.

   

 

The article speaks of critical consciousness being of such 'overlooked' nature. The article describes it as "reading the world". In order to develop a critical consciousness, we have to examine ourselves closely, with regards to our believes, values, assumptions, bias etc. This means having an adequate understanding of ones own 'make up' as well as that of others, the world and everything in it.

 

The psychosocial module has been well set up and I believe that blogging was put into place to develop our critical consciousness which I appreciate. The articles that we were supplied with, are amazing as they unlock a whole new field of importance to us! I strongly recommend that the module should try and lay even more focus on the development of the students critical consciousness as I see this as the key that will unlock one of the important doors to becoming a better therapist and advocate for our clients....because the marks that we receive do not always reflect the true potential...and besides, we need to think about what will become our drive when our work wont be marked any longer...

 



 

                                                                                                           Reference

 

Kumagai & Lypson, 2009, 'Beyond Cultural Competence: Critical Consciousness, Social Justice, and Multicultural Education', Academic Medicine

84(6), pp. 782 - 786