Sai Samant

Thu, 26 Apr 2001

In school: What has been effective and what hasn't been in terms of better preparing me for a diverse workplace

By far, the classes within my discipline have been the most effective at conveying the importance of diversity.I am an easy sell, though: I assume that diversity is worth promoting and supporting, and so I don't require convincing of the virtues of multiculturalism.I can cite tangible benefits that have been noted in my classes (these are almost always related to linguistic diversity):

• In about 40 years (though this estimate varies), there will be more people who speak English as a second language than those who do as a first (think of India and China). What does this mean for Americans, who, aside from Japan, have the highest percentage of monolingual speakers? It means that, we've gotten lazy and perhaps snobby, in our time as hegemon. Though it is not a necessity at this point to learn a second (we won't even start with a third) language, understanding that globalization affects culture just as much as commerce is a step in the right direction, assuming that direction is toward diversity awareness.

• There are roughly 6000 languages in the world, some spoken by only one or two speakers. A lot of dying languages are spoken in regions of the world like the Amazon rain forest, where the biodiversity is amazing, and potentially the source of many medical findings. In these dying languages, a lot of medical research has already been done. By this is meant that the peoples who have been living in the forest for years have an understanding of what their surroundings can provide. But in order to tap into this resource, an understanding and preservation of linguistic diversity is required. Linguistic pluralism is not only representative of cultural pluralism, but is also a resource for scientific research.

• Researching and writing about dialect awareness in the United States was a slap in the face. It woke me up to the difficulty of "language education," by which I mean establishing an awareness and tolerance of linguistic variation, and an understanding of what language-based discrimination represents (discrimination of other forms). The difficulty with which people accept "scientific" (and I suppose a discussion of that could occupy an entirely separate curriculum transformation project) fact when those facts are contradictory to their "folk" understanding of a concept has been demonstrated time and again. Linguistic education could just be a repeat of heliocentrism, or evolutionary theory. And there are still non-believers of both of those concepts, which many accept as scientific fact. So the stick-to-it-iveness that most people have when it comes to their beliefs undermines the ability of people with up to the minute information, i.e., linguists, to convey evidence which contradicts widely accepted folk beliefs (or, for linguists myths). Understanding the challenges academics face when dealing with the public, provided me with a better understanding of the slow progress we have made over the past 40 years (since the origins of the field of sociolinguistics).

The progress of going from high school attitudes to present attitudes:

It is always assumed that people with left-wing ideals/policies/views are by definition somehow more open-minded than their right-wing counterparts.This is probably true; however, a problem arises when right-leaner are dismissed by leftists because they are assumed to be close-minded, or to have irrationally based beliefs/values.I fell victim to the reverse-close-mindedness trap in high school.Hell-bent on proving myself accepting and tolerant - of other skin tones, other orientations, other creeds - I dismisses those who were not as tolerant.And instead of listening to their reasons for being pro-life or anti-gun control, I assumed on their behalf, ignorance, or fanatic religiosity.And of course, minimal exposure to people throughout high school never forced me to test this on people who might not fit the mold - people existed who had views contrary to my own, and with legitimate reasons for those views.But I had never met them, or else I had never bothered to.

Living in the dorms (or with any group of people, I guess) certainly opened me up to the variety of opinion and the reasons for those opinions. I met people who dismissed affirmative action.And these were not people who went to the most conservative church in one of the most conservative areas of Seattle.These were people who had statistics and facts and reasoning to back up their reasons for voting in favor of I-200.And while I certainly didn't agree with them, for once I realized what it meant to respectfully disagree.Because I still wanted to be friends with these people.And I didn't think of them any less because we didn't see eye to eye on one or two or ten issues.If anything, it made for more engaging and interesting debate and conversation.So the diversity connection: diversity of backgrounds automatically provides diversity of thought and opinion.And part of growing up and acquiring the ability to be a socially responsible and aware adult is understanding that a lot of who a person is, is where they have come from and where they think they are going, and what they plan on doing along the way.