Cultural Awareness
Cultural awareness can be defined in its fundamental principles as the foundation of communication that involves the ability to become aware of the cultural values, beliefs, and perceptions present in the dynamics of a school or social setting (Maaruf et al., 2017) . It is important because it lays the ground and the fundamentals of our interactions with other people from other cultures. In other words, cultural awareness is being mindful of the other people in a given setting whose beliefs and ideologies may be different from ours due to factors such as personality and background differences. The best way to enhance cultural awareness is through advocating for practices that seek to bring unity by embracing diversity (Maaruf et al., 2017) .
One of these practices is to get trained in global leadership (Byram, 2012) . In the typical American school setting, it is correct to point out that the students come from different backgrounds. This could be in term of gender, race, family backgrounds, sexual orientation, and such like differences in personality. It is crucial therefore that the faculty, as well as student leadership, be acquainted in skills of global leadership. This implies being aware of the different classes of people by interacting with people from different walks of life to know how to handle them. This could be achieved through leadership training and conferences in which the school leaders get to interact with leaders from various fields who play a crucial role in broadening their scope and knowledge of cultural differences. The second practice which applies to every member of the school is developing excellent communication skills (Byram, 2012) .
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Good communication skills are essential when dealing with the different cultures, both verbally and nonverbally. It is given that not everyone in a public setting such as the school or the broader community would agree with all the perceptions and beliefs of others. Excellent communication skills, therefore, come in handy to guide in a polite manner conversations and opinions that may vary from the others given.
Proper etiquette is another practice that embraces cultural diversity (Byram, 2012) . This entails being politer by using such words as "please" and "thank you." Such an approach is critical because it teaches one always to be humble. Humility is vital when dealing with cultural diversity because people from different backgrounds have various ways of communicating which to some extent may come across as being rude. Modesty and proper etiquette, therefore, enable one to maintain their cool in such an uncomfortable spot and thus promotes the ability to avert aggressiveness in disagreements. The other way cultural awareness can be embraced in the school is through the celebration of traditional festivals and rights (Byram, 2012) . In this case, the school could organize cultural and traditional fairs and weeks in which students from different cultures are encouraged to promote their lifestyles by displaying the way of life of their people.
By exposing the students to such cultural interactions, they can better understand by experiencing the various cultures presented in the school. Such a clear perception of the multiple cultures promotes the understanding, and therefore the love and respect for other cultures. Another essential practice promoting cultural awareness is encouraging students to pay attention to differences in culture, not only in the school setting but in the society as well (Byram, 2012) . In this manner, it becomes easy to promote the interest in other cultures which then gives way for the students to gain more knowledge on the cultures around them, and therefore, become aware of their traditions, beliefs, and perceptions about the general lifestyle. This encourages the members of the society to become more culturally sensitive to avoid bothering other members of the community on religious days, as well as being able to know what kind of topics of discussions to hold around what people from a given culture.
References
Byram, M. (2012). Language awareness and (critical) cultural awareness–relationships, comparisons and contrasts. Language Awareness , 21 (1-2), 5-13.
Maaruf, S. Z., Mohamad, S. N. A., Mohamed, A. M. D., & Shukor, N. (2017). Examining Knowledge, Awareness and Action Orientation Through Multicultural Assessment Proficiency (MAP) for Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Higher Education Practices. Advanced Science Letters , 23 (8), 7821-7824.
