My Culture & My Father are leading me to become a Turn-Around Leader

The broad definition of culture has to do with the beliefs and behaviors of a group based on an individual’s race, religion, or age. My culture is deeply rooted in my religious upbringing and the beliefs that my family engrained in me throughout my entire life. So how is my culture leading me to become a Turn Around Leader? Let me explain...

I am currently taking a course at FAU called Critical Urban Education. An amazing class for anyone working with students in an urban environment. Actually, I think it is a class that every educator should take. The class is forcing us to examine our own culture and beliefs in order to examine how personal bias impacts our professional practice. One of the assignments for the course has us writing an Epistemology which is forcing us to examine who we are and how our experiences impact our thinking and belief systems. It has been an emotionally challenging assignment, as I recall experiences of my youth that I have not considered for years. I was forced to recall experiences with discrimination that my family and I have faced. Events of my past that have shaped me as a person and experiences with my father that I realize now have influenced my desire to become a turn-around leader. These stories have been hard to recall because it makes me realize how much I wish I would have had this realization while my father was still alive. I wish I would have had the opportunity to share this with him before he died. Perhaps in sharing with you, it is my way of putting the words out in the universe in hopes that somehow they will reach him and he will know what a positive influence he has been in my life.

  How my culture and my father are leading me to become a turn-around leader... My story:      

         I grew up in a traditional middle-class neighborhood even though we were the only Jewish family on my block; the neighbors never seemed to treat us any different. They did wonder why we had no Christmas tree or Christmas lights. I remember feeling like there was something wrong with us that we didn’t celebrate Christmas. So my father let us put up stockings on Christmas Eve and told us that “Hanukkah Hank” would visit all the Jewish children to leave us candy and “gelt” in our stockings. I guess this was his way of trying to help us feel like we fit in. He also made sure that everyone joined in for our celebration of Hanukkah. We would host huge Hanukkah parties. There would be 80-90 people in the house, the yard, everywhere. He would buy dreidels and chocolate gelt for everyone, and my mother would peel 50 pounds of potatoes to make latkes. They would have gifts for all the children too. Everyone loved our parties. I remember that all my friends would tell me how they were glad that they had a Jewish friend because they got to celebrate more holidays with us. It was important to my dad that we felt comfortable with our roots, so he welcomed everyone that wanted to be part of our celebrations.
          My earliest memories of my childhood always included large gatherings of family and friends throughout the year. Around our table always sat members of our extended family, neighborhood friends and sometimes people my father welcomed into our home for a family meal. I remember my father telling us that it is a blessing to share what we have with others. He would give the shirt off his back, if there was someone that needed it more than he did. So if he met someone that he believed could use a good meal, he would invite them to our house. We were told to welcome these guests as family, so we did. These strangers were called aunt or uncle and were often very different from any of our real relatives, and yet they joined in our meal and festivities and enjoyed their time at our family dinners. Over the years, our table often included some regular guests, our “uncles” that had joined our family for meals so many times they had truly become part of the family. We were also welcome to bring our friends to join our family meal, so the family dinner table regularly included 10-12 people. Considering there were only five of us, there were a lot of extra mouths my mother was feeding each week. She seemed to enjoy it though.

As a result of my parent’s efforts to share our traditions with our friends and neighbors, I was able to embrace our culture. I am not sure if this was something my parents would have done anyway, or if it was the result of our early encounters with extreme prejudice that made my parents so intent on making sure others understood our traditions. Either way, my parents helped us accept who we are and made sure that we understood that it was ok to embrace our culture. They would remind of us frequently of our heritage and insist we not forget because doing so would mean that others might forget… And according to my parents’ teachings it was our responsibility to ensure that we never let anyone forget the cruelty our ancestors faced in the hands of their oppressors.

When I was a child, my father ran the poverty program for the City of Miami. I am not sure what department he worked with other than to say it was the poverty program. His department was responsible for funding community programs and services. The liaisons in his office worked with various organizations and he often visited these agencies to discuss funding needs. I remember going with my father to the courthouse in down town Miami during the summer when we were off from school. The big city, with all the tall skyscrapers was my first exposure to what I would call an urban environment. My brother and I would fly paper airplanes from the top of courthouse building and go with my father when he visited agencies and projects in the downtown area. I remember thinking how cool it was that artist decorated the buildings (the graffiti art). The people we would meet were always nice to my father, and I often recognized the people my father would invite to our home on Friday nights. I remember the strange looks we would get when we called them “uncle” and gave them hugs.

            My early understanding of the need that existed in these urban areas was one in which I recognized that despite need, there was still a sense of pride and family commitment. My father would tell us that we were lucky that we had enough to share, that not everyone did. He also stressed that if you have enough to share, that it is our moral responsibility to do so. He would tell us how fortunate he felt to have a job that would allow him to help people that needed a little help. He always made sure we understood that everyone we met deserved respect, that just because these people were struggling a little or a lot did not mean that they did not deserve our respect. His favorite speech always started with “there for the grace of god go I” and usually ended with “as long as I have enough to share with those in need I will and I expect you to do the same.” This is so deeply engrained in me that I have always believed that all people, no matter their circumstances deserve to be treated with respect and that those that have been faced with the greatest challenges may need that respect even more than others. My father would remind us that the discrimination some people face today is not unlike the discrimination that my people have faced in the past. He would tell us that if we allow others to believe it OK to discriminate against people based of race, religion, or whatever makes them different, then we are sending the message that this behavior is acceptable and justified. My people, my ancestors, members of my own family were killed in the witness of those that stood by and did nothing. 

             My understanding of the word “urban” and the people that live in urban environments is based on these early experiences with my father. The belief that all individuals, regardless of their circumstances deserve our respect and help if we are in a position to offer it also comes from my early experiences with my father. While, I have always felt a passion to work with those that need my help the most, it is only now, after doing the personal reflection required for this assignment that I truly understand my deep inner motivation to become a turn-around leader. You could say, I was bred to be a turn-around leader. That it is who I was brought up to be, and it is what my father would expect of me. I only wish I had this realization before my father passed away this past October, I think it would have made him very proud to know that my desire to be a turn-around leader is based on what I learned from him.

 


                              In loving memory of my father Paul Kussner