Reflection 2

Transformation… What do you think about when you here this word? Do you think about something or someone turning into something totally different than what it once was like it is a Transformer? Is this even possible? Well, this is possible. Take the example that was used in the article Transformation: A Beginning. This article gave an example of the metamorphosis of a butterfly. The butterfly is the only species known to man that is able to turn into a different creature entirely. It starts off as a caterpillar and then forms a cocoon around itself and later transforms into a butterfly. This is still a very mysterious process but if this can happen with a caterpillar, this means it can happen with each and everyone one of us according to the two articles: Transformation: A Beginning and Transformation: Creating Context, Part 1.
Of course this cannot happen in a literal since but this happens through a multicultural awareness/consciousness (MA/C). What MA/C means to me is as follows: someone who knows that everyone is different in many aspects of their life but has the utmost respect for the other person’s views as well as their own. As I learned in class this past Wednesday, it takes more to MA/C than to just hanging out with people of different ethnicities and different cultures. What it takes is changing the way you think and feel about situations. An example that was given in class was of a child acting out in a supermarket. Almost everyone’s natural instinct would be: why is his mother letting her child do this, why doesn’t she take him outside and beat his butt. This is an incorrect thought process for someone who has mastered MA/C or of a person that is truly transformed. First a transformed person would look at the situation without any judgment and then he would try to figure out if this is a child who is just having a bad day or is this a child with behavior problems. The child may very well be acting out because of a recent trauma, such as a divorce. This type of transformation in my opinion is not easy to attain but it is not an obstacle that cannot be passed.
There is defiantly more to transformation than the paragraph above. A few other key factors that are to transformation is being tolerant, nonjudgmental and accepting of everyone’s ideas and beliefs. Being tolerant does not mean keeping people in your life only because of what they do for you but accepting everyone for what they bring into your life. Being nonjudgmental means having no bias or un-bias about someone or an idea. You must just be understanding of the idea. Accepting someone means having the ability to let someone in and take them as they are.