This week, I completed updating the curriculum with what I believe may be essential to the parent and child education curriculum and created evaluation questions to view the progress the see if there is any potential improvements we can make to the curriculum. In the following weeks, I am excited to hear what the parent participants will say about the curriculum.
On Tuesday, Carol Parker, the program leader for Cornell Cooperative Extension-NYC retired, bringing a huge celebration in the Queens Office. Being a part of this office, I could tell that everyone treated each other like family. As happy as the celebration was, it was also bittersweet as everyone bid their farewells and good wishes to her. I could tell that she was both loved and respected, and left some kind of imprint on every employee here. Watching her, I hope that some day I could leave the impression and influence that she placed in this work environment. I really loved how warm and familiar the environment was and hope to work in an office as warm-hearted as this one.
On Wednesday, I continued my work, but also attended a Zoom meeting regarding Cultural Humility by Jerel Ezell. The lecture was both thought-provoking and informational leaving with a lot of food for thought. Usually, we when we provide any type of community engaging activity, we start with a weak personal connection and a level of disconnection because we are a part of an institution that acts discriminatory and excluding. Not only that, when we do the research necessary providing the data, we usually know what to do, but not the process of how to do it. As such Jerel provided a generalized guide on how to approach the topics we share and the mindset we should hold. We need to unlearn what we think we know and actively listen while have an open-minded disposition because we truly do not understand all the cultural biases that exist. Even if we do not truly understand the reason behind a thought process, we should focus on affirmation and acknowledging.
This week was filled with fun and intriguing pieces of information I will try to carry on and apply to my own life.