Group Presentation 2

I was so impressed with this group presenations on communities! Rather than relaying tired information about how communities work, this group worked incredibly hard to set up a scenario that students would be able to really get into. This experience would help to build student empathy with those that have difficulties getting further in the cities they live in, and the resulting divisions, bitterness, and resentment that can sometimes build because of this.

While communities are usually formed to put a positive connotation on someone that has been ostracized before, I feel like they can sometimes be detrimental to unity while they are at the same time trying to help. The word 'community' tries to build a unification between people who share certain beliefs, ideals, motives, hopes, etc, but they can work to try to mold people and create division if they focus primarily on one aspect. The way we use the terms 'black' 'white' or 'hispanic' community are greate examples of this. While these groups attempt sometimes to use the word 'community' as a reaction to the negative connotations they somtimes recieve, at the same time, they can be used to exclude if someone within or outside of the group fits some of the issues held by a majority of people but wants to speak out with a different opinion or interestin mind and they are labeled as being an outisider who is not valid as a representation of that community. Oneof the greatest examples I've seen of this was when I was talking to my friend Michelle. She was talking to me about how she was basically disowned by a lot of her friends and family because she is a black American who went off to college and is percieved as trying to be something she 'is not'. She asked me once if I felt she met my definition of what a 'black person was'. I almost had a heart attack over that question, and answered that we need to not look to stereotypes to define how we think of entire people because it becomes a self-fullfilling and devisive situation.

Anyway, I would definitely use this exercise in the classroom because it would help students to get some sort of understanding as to how a group of people come together under certain shared interests to try to better their lives in regard to acquiring services needed for survival. I thought the group did a fantastic job and they gave the class a great tool to use in the future.