Last Saturday, I had the privilege of facilitating a group on the topic of cultural competency. The group of about 50 people were completing the training in order to be qualified to volunteer at Kansas City, Missouri-area elementary schools. This training was developed to provide people with the opportunity to be open and vulnerable to learning new cultures.
During this two-hour training, we developed a definition of cultural competency based on words and phrases given in a group activity:
The open and appropriate engagement of others through awareness, sensitivity, adaption, understanding, curiosity, and compassion in order to be responsive to others.
I liked this definition because it does seem to encapsulate what the training was attempting to do: Be appropriate and open when engaging with others who are different. Put aside the implicit biases we may have about others. Understand, every person is different and unique; and, while stereotypes may be (sometimes helpful) cognitive shortcuts, they often cause us to make incorrect assumptions about others.
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