Rainbow nation child - Diversity Essay

Hey!
Please can I have some feedback and help with my sentence structure and grammar.

Draft a short essay regarding your experience with diversity, following the instructions provided below.
Please read the NASW Code of Ethics. You will note that it includes the following statement: "Social workers treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion, mindful of individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity." Discuss two experiences you have had that are relevant to individual differences and /or diversity. Faculty reviewers will consider both the content of your essay and your written communications skills.

Your completed essay should be maximum of 1000 words, i.e., no more than the equivalent of three double-spaced pages, in 12 point font with 1 inch margins (single or double-spaced).

The poster child for diversity is South Africa, a country which has 11 official languages, mixture of skin tones, religion, beliefs, and ethnicity. South Africa has risen from hardship, periods of adversity and extremely dark times to become what is known today as: the rainbow nation. South Africa is a country which embraces diversity and breaks the boundaries which separates people and generations.

[...]

Anastacia, you have spent a great deal of time talking about the history of apartheid and the emergence of the "born frees". While I enjoyed reading the historical trip, it did not answer the prompt because you were supposed to tell a story about diversity that you experienced. That said, the story about your parent's experience with apartheid does not count either. You need to develop a second story that revolves around diversity. Forget telling the history of apartheid. That is not of interest to the faculty reader who will be assigned to you. By pushing your personal experiences with diversity down in the essay, you just showed that you did not understand the prompt and what was required of your answer. The faculty reviewer may not finish reading your essay because your personal diversity stories come too late in the essay.

You also presented a number of your personal experiences with diversity. Just choose the 2 that you believe are the most impressive in presenting your experience and expand upon it. You don't need to present more than 2 stories as you do now. The essay prompt makes it clear that you need to present only 2 cases that you personally experienced. Once you revise the essay in the manner I am suggesting, your essay will have properly answered the prompt already.

Try to revise the essay. I will work with you on aligning it with the prompt in the best way possible :-)

Thank you for your feedback. I will work on it and re post my new version :-)

vangiespen

Which personal experiences with diversity in my essay, stood out the most to you? I am trying to decide which two experiences to write about.

I would definitely use the cultural diversity experience that you had while staying in South Korea. The relationship with your boyfriend should be a highlight since it is obvious that the two of you come from highly different worlds. So the individual, ethnical, and cultural diversity will be interesting to see in your story. Play on those factors by presenting a specific example for each (if possible) and then explain how you and he dealt with the situation.

For the second experience, I was wondering if you can think back to the time when you were in school? Perhaps there was a particular situation then when you experienced the difficulties presented by the 3 criteria? I am thinking that maybe you can find something in your past relating to this following comment of yours in the essay:


It would seem that in order to actively want to participate in having other people embrace their diversity, you had personally experienced some opposition to your own. If you remember any events in that aspect, you should definitely use it in the essay.

Those are just my suggestions of course. You may have some other ideas for the stories you want to use. There are no wrong or right stories for this essay. It can always be spun in such a way that it can answer the prompt. It just needs to be properly edited and at least have a window of opportunity to connect it to the prompt somehow :-) I can help you find that.

Hey vangiespen

This is my new version. It is just my first draft so it might not be perfect. I just want to make sure that I actually answered the prompt this time. I struggled to find one specific example in Korea. Let me know what you think.

Thank you :-)

Anastacia, I strongly advice you not to tell the dog meat story in your essay because it is not something that is culturally acceptable to others and could affect the impression of yourself that you are trying to convey to the admissions officer. Do your best not to possibly offend the senses of your reader. Dog meat for food is something strongly frowned upon in most countries, specially the United States, which is a country of dog lovers.

Overall though, the essay seems to be working already. This is a good draft that can use some editing. However, since I advised you to take out a great portion of the essay referring to dog meat, you should revise the essay before we settle down to work on the grammar issued that exist. I want to make sure that we will have a final version that is best suited to your needs and best represents you before we deal with the errors in the paper.

Hi, I am sorry if I offended anyone :-/... That was not my intention.

vangiespen, Would you suggest I take out eating "strange food" altogether or would it be OK if I talk about the other types of exotic food I had eaten(silkworms, chicken feet, Boiled Intestine Sausage.... ) instead of dog meat. I was thinking of using the example of me embracing and celebrating the food in Korea as a link to my first experience in South Africa (Indian food).

I know that you did not mean to offend anyone which is why I warned you about it and advised you to change it :-) You can keep the food reference if you want to. However, I feel that we should address the cultural difference between you and your Korean American boyfriend or at your school. The essay just feels like it pays too much attention to diversity and offers very little in terms of cultural differences. Normally, the cultural difference is often highlighted by a story that shows how two people with two different cultural background find a halfway point of common point of interest that eventually helps them get along in this diverse world. Do you have any experience that can point that out in the essay for you?

Hey,
I made changes to my first draft.
Let me know what you think :-)

Rainbow nation child:
The poster child for diversity is South Africa, a country which has 11 official languages and a mixture of skin tones, religion, beliefs, and ethnicity. South Africa has risen from hardship, periods of adversity, and extremely dark times to become what is known today as the Rainbow Nation. South Africa is a country which embraces diversity and breaks the boundaries which separate people and generations. I am the product of South Africa; I am a rainbow nation child.

Growing up in a multi-cultural nation experiencing opposition from my own was inevitable. I experienced this on a number of occasions. One experience in particular stands out to me. In my first year of school in which there were very few people of color. All I wanted to do was fit in with my peers but being the only Indian mixed race in my grade I stood out like a sore thumb. My parents did not make this any easier on me. The way they spoke, the things they said and the way they dressed embarrassed me. For lunch every day I would get samosas, curry, and various other Indian treats. The first time I sat down in class and opened my lunch box, one of my peers cried out; "Yuk! What's that?" The expression on her face made me feel so ashamed. Every day thereafter I begged my mom to make me "normal" food. I did everything in my power to hide who I was until I met my friend, Imelda.

Imelda had just moved to South Africa from the Philippines. Everyone was fascinated with her. She always brought traditional Philippine food and shared it with everyone. Even though some students had negative reactions to her food, she still proudly promoted her culture and customs. She never once shied away from who she was. We both were different yet everyone accepted her for who she was. I realized the only reason no one really knew who I was, was because I never shared it with everyone. As a result of this, I decided to embrace diversity and the beauty that came with the differences. As a South African Indian mixed with European descent, I am proud of my own diversity and I actively promote embracing diversity within others. This is something I am adamant about and actively promoted throughout my school days and into my university days.

During my third year of university my friends and I were having lunch when a little girl ran up to me and started talking in a foreign language. It was a language I had never heard before. Soon after, her father approached me and apologized profusely. He handed his business card to me and enlightened me about the Teach English in Korea program. At first I was not interested. Sadly, I could not even point South Korea out on a map which made me realize that I did not know much about the rest of the world. I decided that this could be a great opportunity for me to learn about other countries, societies and even cultures. I knew that traveling would change my outlook, or so I was told, but I had no idea of how significantly it would have impacted me. Through living and teaching in Korea, I gained an outsiders perspective on integrating into a new culture which helped me reflect upon my own experiences with integration in South Africa. However, I did not just want to be a foreigner looking from the outside in. I wanted to be a part of the culture.

Emerging myself into the Korean culture was far more difficult than I had expected. As a foreign English teacher, I was required to co-teach all my English classes with a Korean teacher. I thought this would be the easy part of moving to Korea. However working with someone who spoke a limited amount of English was more difficult than I anticipated. Beside the language barrier and cultural differences, we had different teaching styles which complicated matters even further. My co-teacher and I bumped heads often in the classroom which resulted in ineffective teaching. After a month of unsuccessful teaching, my co-teacher and I decided to sit down and figure out how we could use our strengths effectively in the classroom. We both had the same goal in mind which was to provide a healthy learning environment for the students, and ensure each student reaches their full potential. We decided the best way to accomplish this was to use our diverse skills and knowledge in the classroom. I taught in English, and she explained in Korean. I prepared games, and she prepared the worksheets. I handled the rewards, and she dealt with bad behavior. To ensure we were on the same page for each lesson we had weekly meetings. These simple changes made in the classroom strengthened our relationship and bridged a significant culture gap. We both learnt how to live and work in a diverse world.

Growing up in South Africa and having traveled, diversity is no stranger to me. I have learnt to understand that each individual is unique, and I have learnt to move beyond mere tolerance. I choose to embrace and celebrate the uniqueness within each person. As a social worker it is important to treat people in a caring and respectful fashion. This can only be accomplished through acceptance and learning to love because of our differences.

To conclude, the late Tata Madiba (Nelson Mandela) said: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."