Community Cultural Wealth Walk

Activity Name & Description

Community Cultural Wealth Walk

Date/Semester

Summer Semester 2018

Learning Domains Addressed

o Personal & Professional Development

o Leadership

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to participate in a cultural wealth walk, and will demonstrate a more complex awareness of their own cultural wealth (e.g. social, familial, aspirational,

linguistic, resistant, navigational).

Students will be able develop a more complex awareness of their classmates life experiences, obstacles, and methods of resilience, and will have an opportunity to engage

in meaningful discussions with their classmates in small group settings lead by program faculty.

Students will be able to engage in large group discussions lead by their professor and will develop a greater understanding of how activities like a community cultural wealth walk can help create more a more balanced perspective about what many may consider personal

deficits.

Assessment Rubric

Advanced:

After the community cultural wealth walk, the student was able to connect 3 or more of their experiences to 3 or more of the 6 forms of cultural wealth.

After the community cultural wealth walk, the student was able to model how reframing perceived deficits into community wealth can help 3 or more types of non traditional students.

During the group discussion, the student asked 1 question and/or provided 1 reflection based off their observations of 3 or more of their classmates positions.

Competent:

After the community cultural wealth walk, the student was able to connect 2 of their experiences to 2 of the 6 forms of cultural wealth.

After the community cultural wealth walk, the student was able to model how reframing perceived deficits into community wealth can help 2 types of non traditional students.

During the group discussion, the student asked 1 question and/or provided 1 reflection based off their observations of two of their classmates positions.

Basic:

After the community cultural wealth walk, the student was able to connect 1 of their experiences to 1 of the 6 forms of cultural wealth.

After the community cultural wealth walk, the student was able to model how reframing perceived deficits into community wealth can help 1 type of non traditional students.

During the group discussion, the student asked 1 question and/or provided 1 reflection based off their observations of one of their classmates positions.

Poor:

After the community cultural wealth walk, the student was unable to connect 1 of their experiences to 1 of the 6 forms of cultural wealth.

After the community cultural wealth walk, the student was unable to model how reframing perceived deficits into community wealth can help 1 type of non traditional students.

During the group discussion, the student did not ask 1 question and/ or provide 1 reflection based off their observations of one of their classmates positions.

Evidence

I did not have a picture for this event but found a great picture of the location where it took place.

Reflection

The community cultural wealth walk took place towards the end a dense summer semester. It is safe to say that collectively the cohort was running on fumes at this point and was in need of a change of pace from the week to week challenge of compressing a semester full of learning into eight weeks. I bring this up because it stands in stark contrast to earlier in the semester when we participated in the privilege walk. This would not be the last comparison to the privilege walk, in fact, the activities would prove to be more interconnected than originally anticipated.

It was late afternoon and we all lined up and were curious of the type of questions that would be asked of us this time around. This time Dr. Moss had a little help with extra faculty who worked with sections of us. Once the questions began a similar phenomena occurred in that we all began taking steps in sync with each other. This of course was how the privilege walk began. One by one though, as each question began to dig a little deeper, the group started to separate.  We all soon became aware that while this activity was similar to the last, the questions were manifesting a different meaning in us. Based on Yosso's Cultural Wealth, this activity aimed to take what may have been seen as disadvantages from the privilege walk, and reframe those same concepts into personal and communal strength. The questions asked about being bilingual, whether or not we had strong familial and communal support groups, and how we found ways to navigate without money by utilizing other resources to get by.

What I found interesting was that most of the class stood in opposite sides of the spectrum from where they did on the privilege walk. In other words, those who were in the back during the privilege walk were in the front of the community cultural wealth activity and vice versa. Personally, I was interested how I ended up near the front of both walks. As mentioned before, the privilege walk was framed around identities in race and what that brings which is why I ended up in the front. However with this activity, looking at strengths one possesses based off navigating life experiences, I also found myself making quite a few steps. This duality did a good job at helping me understand the bigger picture of how these two activities linked to our development.

After the walk we again broke off into small groups, this time only with faculty. I had the pleasure of being in a group with Dr. Person. The experience carried a lot of weight emotionally for my group and this was in large part because of how we had to recall some unfortunate or challenging experiences. Dr. Person wanted to put it in a context that these experiences created resilience and made us stronger. I think intellectually the group understood this but in our heart we struggled with this because in a way it was incomplete. Dr. Person asked us all to share what we meant, and when she got to me I said something to the effect of; "I understand these experiences made me stronger, but they came at a cost, and that doesn't necessarily make this a positive thing as much as it just is a reality".

The group responded and one of my classmates brought it up in the class room discussion. One by one more people seemed to understand and were in tune with the idea of "the cost". It was a great moment because for many of us, we were able to share our feelings about community cultural wealth in a deeper lens. At the end of it I think we all appreciated both the privilege and community cultural wealth walks a lot more. The Holocaust museum and the two walks were like a trilogy, all interconnected, building layers on each other. After this activity I can see how important these exercises are and I would love to revisit it both with my cohort and others some time in the future.