Blog 2: The First Visit

1. Upon arriving to the high school, I was very surprised to see that the kids actually wanted our help. They were ecstatic when Brooke and I walked into their classroom. We started off in a Biology class and just walked around the room and observed. The kids asked me a few questions about the lab they were doing but nothing that I couldn't handle. There wasn't too much interaction between the kids and I, so the language barrier wasn't really apparent. After Biology we went to a Math class and tutored two girls in the library. Once again, language wasn't really an issue, I think the girls had been in America for awhile at this point. As we got to talking a little bit, the girls seemed to have a lot of questions about college. I answered all the questions they had, and asked if they had considered college in the future. One girl had said that she really wanted to go to college to become a nurse, but that she doubted she would be able to because of her home situation. I knew that would be a really touchy subject, so I didn't ask too many questions. She shared with me that she lives at home with her mom, grandmother, and two other siblings. I assumed one of the issues she referred to was money. After awhile, the conversation made me really sad, because this smart girl with a desire to go to college would probably never be able to, and there are people here in America that are in college, but are only going because that's the "normal" thing to do.

2. As this young girl shared with me that she likely wasn't going to be able to go to college because of her home situation, I attributed the issue of money related to college to her. If I had to pick an attribution error to go along with this situation, I would choose the ultimate attribution error. I didn't use stereotypes or judge her, I would choose this simply due to my lack of experience with people of this culture. I assumed that money was an issue for her because that's the main reason that kids in America don't go to college. In reality, she is from another culture, and money is probably the least of her worries in this regard.

3. After this experience, I have learned to really pay attention to the fact that I am from a different culture than the kids that attend this high school. The reasons that my friends and I have for not doing something are most likely going to be completely different than the reasons that these kids have for not doing something. In the future, I just have to be very aware of this fact and think carefully about the situation at hand before initiating conversation or responding to a question.