Critical Consciousness and Development of Reflexivity - Essay Example

? Critical Consciousness and Development of Reflexivity Critical Consciousness and Development of Reflexivity Question People can energize their lives through making efforts to practice their inner values. The moment people identify values, which are meaningful to them, they develop ways of implementing them (Newberry, 2007). When people choose to follow their determined efforts in practicing these God given virtues, good fortunes are sure to follow them. People who normally practice proper values experience new opportunities, improved income or resources, as well as other forms of psychological or material benefit. Practicing proper values and beliefs brings about cases of life response whereby good fortune suddenly appears to humans (Newberry, 2007). Personally, my own values and beliefs have helped me in relating with others well. I can pride myself for hard work, diversity, equality, charity, self reliance, satisfying others, reliability, integrity, love, accountability, reliability, results-oriented, quality of work, trust, wisdom and well-being. All this are beliefs that have assisted me in relating to others in the society. I can easily understand tough issues, which individuals are enduring, with regards to my beliefs and values (Payson, 2007). Take for instance a value like quality of work. People, in today’s society, are expected to give the best results in their dealings. People overwork themselves just to please others, and this is a challenge to many. It is difficult living to the expectations of others, but that is life. For instance, Christian values dictate that Christians should live to the expectations of their God (Newberry, 2007). I, therefore, try to improve my work quality so as to avoid any wrangles with others and live happily. To me, quality of work is just doing the right thing as I would not like to have any wrangles with others. Therefore, I appreciate how hard it is for a person to struggle working everyday in order to please others. Other values, which help me to understand the problems people go through is diversity. Through diversity, I understand that dealing with diverse people can be a challenge. People need to be diverse in order to deal with this. However, this is not a virtue which every individual has. Question 2 Beliefs and values help people to look at the world around them differently. They help people in looking at others positively. Beliefs and value assist people build attraction to other things. When I am around individuals that make me feel annoyed, troubled, nervous, edgy, and suspicious or in any way uncomfortable, my values cannot allow me to associate anymore with this people. Normally what I see in these individuals is their hidden belief about how they do not care to relate to others. If a person hides his or her insecurities and fears towards another person, then the other person, willingly, will continue to take advantage of the insecure person. This will, therefore, be an uncomfortable relationship. Likewise, when people are around persons who encourage one another to feel appreciated and loved, part of what they are feeling is a reflection of their own values and beliefs. This means that the persons believe that everybody deserves to be appreciated and loved. Psychologists believe that this type of attraction works both ways. Individuals will be attracted to other persons only when the other person reflects beliefs about themselves which correspond to the first person. Nevertheless, if something about a person reminds another of their own insecurities and fears, then that person with fear will tend to keep away from the person that he or she fears. This helped me a lot in building my relationship with others. My beliefs and values taught me that, in order to build strong relationships, factors like honesty and trust are essential. Through trust and honesty, I gain insight on people’s perspectives, and how they want to be treated. People want the best out of everything. I also relate well to people who trust and are honest to me. Through my belief of love, I learnt that I can relate well with people who value love and appreciation. This is how I build my relationship with others. Question 3 If individuals in diverse parts of the world believe conflicting things, then a wide majority of them must be mistaken in their own beliefs (Fine & Teram, 2009). When we believe in what we do, mainly because that is what individuals around us believe, then the odds are rather good that we will be wrong or inaccurate in a lot of scenarios. When people are asked whether they believe in a matter just because everybody else believes in it, extremely few of them would reply yes, even though it is incredibly clear that this is how things function in reality. If people were just told that 90% of citizens believed that touching frogs gave them warts, then they might be perfectly keen to question that belief (Fine & Teram, 2009). However, people are not often told beliefs or presumption as if there is some doubt regarding them. Instead, some people might just tell others, in a straightforward way, that frogs bring about warts, or they might offer some sort of proof, like "Do not touch that frog. Joan got lots of warts due to picking up frogs!" For sure it was the speaker's belief or presumption, based on the cultural presumption, that handling frogs were the reason for Joan’s problem. A majority of what people communicate to others, like "I have an older sister" or "Most supermarkets close at 10 o'clock", are not aimed at deceiving others as they are derived from easily verified information. This is with regards to their cultural beliefs. People acquire such information from their culture (Furman, 2009). People, as a result, are normally told the truth. Even when they are told things that are false, it is very rare that they detect the falsehood in that information. People who tell lies do not tell others things that they could easily disprove (Furman, 2009). Also, individuals making honest mistakes would often not have made that mistake whether or not it was easy to discover otherwise. Therefore, experience tells people that, many times, what people tell them is true. Not unless, statements contradict people current, cultural beliefs, they often accept them without question (Payson, 2007). Therefore, a belief considering various social works to be evil or that some cultures cannot relate well to it is a vital cause of how people work. People will concern themselves in a work which is praised by their culture, and, on the other hand, keep away from works, which their culture does not praise. Question 4 The readings, in class, improved my understating of social work a lot. I can now confirm that social work is an academic discipline and professional, which seeks to enhance the life and welfare of a person, community or group by intervening through various ways. These ways are research, community organizing, direct practice, policy and teaching in support of those affected by poverty or any perceived or real social injustices and breaching of their human rights. In the past, I used to think that social work was mainly to enhance the lives of the social workers more than those who they were helping (Strom-Gottfried, 1999). However, after numerous readings, I came to understand that social workers focus more on assisting other individuals than themselves. Social workers carry out their research while focusing on areas such as social policy, human development, public administration, program evaluation, psychotherapy, and community and international development. They advocate for human justice (Garvin, & Seabury, 2011). I learnt this through the various readings that which gave instances of social workers setting up to assist those who had been socially robbed the human rights. The readings also confirmed to me that social workers go through a lot of challenges, mainly in relation to culture. They encounter challenges relating to people from diverse cultures. They have to practice diverse culture in order to assist others, which is a difficult task. Understanding this made me appreciate social workers even more than before because trying to incorporate yourself to relate with other cultures is not an easy task. With regards to practitioner-activists, I learnt that the roles, which they play, are vital in the society. Every role that these people play is essential in the society (Dean, 2001). The class readings and the films showed me that people who challenge power structures make the social change that is witnessed in a society. The society is in need of individuals who make it easy for the regular citizen to unite with the movement for change (Cohen, 1999). Through the readings, I see practitioner-activists fitting into the role of ordinary citizens. They should be applauded for their crucial tasks in making us being part of a broader social movement. They should be applauded for creating a vision of what citizens from diverse cultures want, not just clarifying what they do not want. Practitioner-activists try to attract people who are not interested in fast social change, but may be willing to reflect on how they can build a resilient society able to respond to the challenges of social relationships and peoples well fare. References Cohen, B. (1999). Intervention and supervision in strengths-based social work practice. Families in Society, 80(5), 460-466. Dean, R. G. (2001). The myth of cross-cultural competence. Families in Society, 82(6), 623-630. Fine, M., & Teram, E. (2009). Believers and skeptics: Where social workers situate themselves regarding the code of ethics. Ethics & Behavior, 19(1), 60-78. Furman, R. (2009). Ethical consideration of evidence-based practice. Social Work, 54(1), 82-84. Garvin, C. D., & Seabury, B. A. (2011). Foundations of interpersonal practice in social work: Promoting competence in generalist practice (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Garvin, C. D., & Seabury, B. A. (2011). Foundations of interpersonal practice in social work: Promoting competence in generalist practice, (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Newberry, J. (2007). Reflexivity in practice: Reflections on an overseas practicum. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 20(2), 50-56. Payson, H. (2007). Plowing: The art of facing an impossible task. New York: Psychotherapy Networker. Strom-Gottfried, K. (1999). Professional boundaries: An analysis of violations by social workers. Families in Society. The Journal of Contemporary Human Services, 80(5), 439–449. Read More