Exhibit: Polish Heritage & Spanish Background

Benchmark: Teamwork and Communication

Skills: TC101- Understand the Cultural Traditions of Others

 

 

            “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” –Lao-Tzu. Knowing yourself is something I personally believe is really important because knowing yourself well allows you to be the best you that you can be and not only do you become more successful in your endeavors, but knowing yourself well makes your more intuitive of other people and their personalities. One thing I have found about myself is that I am a good judge of character. It is easy for me to tell from an initial meeting of a person whether or whether not they have good values. I come from a long line of Poles. My great grandpa was from Poland and my grandma, my mother’s mom, was of this strong heritage too, which has shaped my cultural background. In the 2014-2015 school year I had the privilege of befriending a foreign exchange student from Poland, Michalina Toczek.

            Meeting someone who was from where my family originated from was very unique to me, even though I am a quarter polish I have never traveled to Poland or been as familiar with polish traditions as I would like to say I am.  I think it is important to know your roots because you are you and you cannot change that so embracing your background is a way to feel closer to your true self. During the time Micha was here, we would talk about similarities of the United States and Poland. From her explanations, things are quite different. For example, something that surprised me and that is very different from the U.S was that it was normal for teenagers to smoke cigarettes in between their class periods. This was quite bizarre to me because the though of students our age taking “smoke breaks” does not seem normal or acceptable to me. Personally, as a future healthcare professional I do not agree with cigarettes, but everyone was raised differently, and certain things are more expectable in different cultures.

            I as a fifth grader had been very interested in learning the Spanish language. In the United States, there are a lot of Spanish speaking citizens and not only is it important to be able to communicate to Spanish speaking people but nowadays being bilingual is something that an employer may seek. I studied Spanish at an advance level since my eight-grade year when I took the freshman high school exam and passed, which allowed me to start out with a head start in my Spanish classes. By the end of my sophomore year I had received my required credits for my foreign language. Although at times learning this language may have been difficult, I prevailed and studied the language and the culture of the Spanish speaking countries. One holiday in particular that seemed very different from what I was used to was Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead.) This holiday is celebrated on our Halloween, but the two holidays have significantly different cultural meanings. It is not meant to be a day of sadness or a day of fright, this holiday is meant to celebrate and honor family members who have passed. In the states Halloween is a holiday based off of European traditions. Christians traditionally believed that the veil between the material world and the afterlife thinned and in order to prevent recognition by a soul, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities, also know as tick-or-treating. In medieval Poland, believers were taught to pray out loud as they walked through the forests in order that the souls of the dead might find comfort.  Every culture has a different way of celebrating traditions.

            Knowing where you come from is an important way to be able to continue or create your own traditions. In my career, being able to respect and honor others while still valuing your own is important. To be able to communicate with patients who speak a different language is also an important factor because as a doctor, you work on patients of all different ethnic backgrounds. As a college student, these factors are also important because a student body can often be very diverse. Going into the medical field, this especially is true; people come from all parts of the world to study medicine and dentistry so it is very important to have an understanding of people who come from different backgrounds.