Tip #2:
Know Your Audience,
Know Yourself First
A number of years ago I was asked to teach several days of environmental education in a middle school at the center of a large city. The students were mostly from disadvantaged families and had very little experience with structured learning outdoors in a relatively natural setting. I soon discovered that most considered nature to be dangerous and dirty.
I arrived at the school with trepidation. I was just about the only white person among a thousand students and faculty. These thoughts flew though my mind as I walked though the heavily guarded entry to announce my arrival at the office: "I don't belong here," "I am afraid," "Who do I think I am?" "Who do they think I am?" "Am I safe?" "This must be how an African-American student feels on her first day at a predominantly white school." I noticed that all my thoughts were about separation.
My teaching experience there turned out to deeply affect me for two reasons. First, I was moved by many children as they learned a level of comfort in nature and become passionate about protecting a species of swallowtail butterfly. Second, I began to examine more closely my biases and fears of people who look or act differently from me.
This newsletter is dedicated to those of us who carry biases toward others. In thinking about and researching this article I came across two websites that address this and related issues. I invite you to investigate your own biases by visiting these sites. Doing so can help you and your staff develop better experiences for a far more diverse group of visitors.
Nature Recreation & Cultural Diversity: Connecting Nature Recreation to Culturally Diverse Audiences
http://www.cnrhome.uidaho.edu/css/diversity
Project Implicit:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/
It is well known that people don't always 'speak their minds,' and it is suspected that people don't always 'know their minds.' Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology. This web site presents a method that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods. This new method is called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short.
It takes courage to investigate the workings of your mind. What if you find something you are ashamed of? However, for the sake designing safer, more comfortable visitor experience and for the purpose of encouraging greater participation in your vision and goals, it is well worth the risk.
|
