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Gingerbread people come
to Washington!
What makes you different from
everyone else? A Diversity Exercise
This exercise is
an effective one for expanding our perception
of diversity far beyond the matter of race, and
we encourage chapter presenters to add to this
model and to adapt it to tell stories of their
own that explore this issue further.
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ACTIVITY
To begin the exercise, have participants create a gingerbread
man or woman that models their uniqueness. Encourage them
to consider this the “gingerbread buffet” -
while everyone will begin with the same cookie cutter
base, the decorations each individual chooses to apply
represent what makes the group diverse. Also encourage
everyone to think outside the literal—hair doesn’t
have to be yarn.
You will need:
- A paper plate for each participant
- Gingerbread
- Gingerbread person cookie cutters (all identical)
- Frosting or glue (to attach decorative elements)
- Scissors
- Decorative Elements that can be used to represent
facial features, skin tone, clothing, accessories, etc.
Some ideas include macaroni, sugar sprinkles, licorice,
google eyes, yarn, buttons, candies, felt, construction
paper, etc.
All items are placed on a long table or tables which
participants work along “buffet-style,” taking
what they need to make their creations.
PRESENTATION (given while participants create
gingerbread people):
This project was originally presented at KON Conclave
2003 by Jill A. Pakulski, President of the Penn State
chapter of Kappa Omicron Nu. Jill’s words follow,
as a means of illustrating this activity’s background
and purpose.
The theme for my reign, and my life, is to “think
outside the gingerbread,” to get members to WANT
to come to meetings while providing the great take-away
value that KON expects. I am a senior nutrition major
at Penn State and I decided to stay at school for the
summer to intern, work, run, research, write some music,
and generally develop myself as a professional ready to
spearhead the job network upon my swift graduation. I
guess I feel the need to inflate you with credentials
as a member of a rural farming community who is on the
map created for and by college students... In the summer
the population dwindles from 40,000 to 10,000 for the
three most boring months of college existence. A college
town turned ghost town isn’t that bad, it’s
a nice change of pace… but in comparison to last
summer abroad in Rome, Italy… need I explain? I saw
Europe for the first time and my perspective on world
issues and cultural awareness developed breadth and depth.
By paying attention to the details of another culture,
I enhanced my scope of diversity.
ROMOLO:
He lectured with two fingers inserted between the fourth
and fifth buttons, as if eternally scratching a stomach
itch; he really could not talk without his hands.
He always wore long pants and a long-sleeved shirt.
Just looking at him made me sweat.
Shorts and tank tops were merely a figment of my American
imagination.
ITALY:
The entire cultural experience of studying in Italy was
new… the people, the language, and as this teacher
was explaining in his walk, his talk, and his style in
dress, the architecture.
We took hands-on experience to that next level, where
learning about a building meant physically walking to
the site and having a lecture on its front steps.
Coming from a nation with 200 years of existence to a
nation that’s existed for over 2,000 years, things
are a little overwhelming.
But fortunately, as this Italian architecture teacher
explained, there still is a pattern to life, a pattern
that we as humans create in every city around the world,
a pattern that can be documented all the way back to Roman
times and the very first structures. One of these patterns
is called spolia.
SPOLIA:
Spolia are fragments of architecture left over from former
structures that are used to make a new structure.
The effect is much like that found in a museum, when
archeologists discover ancient remains and display the
world’s oldest bones in a building created within
the last decade.
This example of the juxtapositioning of time periods
is only a spoonful of the ancient Rome. The entire city
is built in layers: from ancient, medieval, baroque, renaissance,
and even modern Rome.
When I say layers, I mean each architectural period of
Roman history is built right on top of the next, so in
some parts of Rome, all five periods are visible in just
one structure using parts of the previous buildings for
the current structure. Many times they take columns from
unbelievably significant structures to make the interior
of a new church. Other pieces of buildings make up wall
hangings cemented permanently into the wall of a newer
building. This reusing of architecture tells the story
of the rise and fall of the Roman empire throughout history,
as well as what they decided would continue to have value
by which parts they chose to reuse.
APPLICATION:
But, you need not go to Rome to understand this concept
of the past--not just influencing, but being an integral
part of the future. The spolia of our lives as college
students, though a bit less architectural, is something
we carry with us everywhere, as recent as move-in weekend,
as far-reaching as our heritage as Americans, and as practical
as our own individuality that we share through our experiences
with each other.
JILL’S SPOLIA – “MOVING-IN”:
Moving into my unfurnished apartment was a family affair…
a couch, two chairs, a table, a bed, not to mention all
the other “essentials” like the lava lamp and
a neon “OPEN” sign. What we choOse to bring,
far beyond the utility value of the small space and the
limited budget, gives some insight into our experiences
prior to the carry up two flights of stairs.
Our universities are fragments of the past. Once completely
agricultural, Penn State is now the home of eight colleges.
While our mascot is the Nittany Lion, who does one armed
pushups for every game point scored, Joe Paterno is our
man, 76, and still coaching, wearing sunglasses despite
the weather, and rolling his pant legs just above the
ankles, just as he did 50 years ago when he was a “new
coach,” too poor to afford a tailor. Football seems
to be a common theme for most universities. At Kansas
State, they do the Wabash Cannonball right before games.
For Louisiana Tech, basketball is their game. Everyone
must be rubbing the brass bulldog in the student center,
because they are #3 in the nation for students in the
WNBA. At the University of Maine, they have nude green
bike runs around campus every year. Their mascot is a
black bear. It was unclear to me whether the two were
related. Our strange traditions, though acceptable in
their own realm, are diverse but share a common thread
of pride. As alumni, we take our own experiences with
our college traditions, and then some, to our workplace,
building on them with our company’s goals. No matter
if it’s a mascot or just “good luck,” we
live on in the legacy of the generations of students that
came before us, laying the foundations for those that
come after. It is a small scale Ellis Island.
Our conglomerate heritage as Americans makes us living
spolia of our ancestors. While “new” may be
an effective advertising campaign, it really overlooks
the very lives we lead. In our fast-paced world, we are
more efficient versions of the cultures from which we
came. Going abroad as an American, my experience of living
in a fast-paced, media-driven society was a square peg
in the round hole of Italian culture. I couldn’t
believe that the Pantheon was on the walk to school. All
this history, so much to see, why was everyone going so
slow? I had to learn a different rhythm of life that made
me appreciate not only the Italian lifestyle, but made
me reflect on my own.
I am from a farm town in the middle of Pennsylvania. When
you look at me, what do you see? My college town is composed
of people my age, a perfect breeding ground for liberal
views and (believe it or not) diversity. Diversity isn’t
always something you can see. Diversity is your individuality,
your uniqueness, your experience.
We are diverse: We are at this conclave to meet more
people, to gain more experience, to make more memories,
to live more of a past, to create more of a future. The
knowledge that we acquire here and at our respective universities
is learning how to learn and to experience through others
a bit of their spolia. We all may have similar move-in
tales, but we are all fragments of the life we have lived
prior to this moment. We have moved in, and are moving
on in a college life, a work life, a personal life, a
passionate life that fosters our experiences.
What I shared with you today is a fragment of my summer,
my spolia. What I hope to accomplish this weekend is to
experience some of yours.
MY SPOLIA – “________________”:
[PRESENTER SHOULD INSERT HER OR HIS OWN STORY HERE]
THE GINGERBREAD EXERCISE:
The gingerbread exercise is meant to visually represent
the diversity that each individual contributes to a group.
We all used the same cookie cutter gingerbread man, and
the same exact materials, but we manipulated them in such
a way that they became our own. They are, in fact, representative
of ourselves. No two will be alike.
To start:
Open the floor for discussion about how each group
member sees him or herself as diverse.
Activity Instructions:
Ask participants to write their definitions of diversity
on their paper plates. Ask how they see themselves as
diverse and encourage volunteers to use their gingerbread
models to explain.
Group Discussion:
- What makes you different from everyone else?
- How is this group diverse?
- What is diversity?
- What groups do you see yourself as being a part of?
- What groups do you NOT consider yourself in?
- How and when have you felt that you weren’t part
of a group?
- What is culture?
- What is American culture?
- What is the culture at your college/university?
- Why is diversity such a huge deal?
- What role do you see diversity playing in the future?
- What role has diversity played in the past?
- What do you hope to gain from this activity?
Conclusion:
The gingerbread is a tool for encouraging a “non-traditional”
view of diversity, to see it as the combined consequence
of individuality and to view it as a tool that can build
culture, rather than a divisive factor that needs to be “dealt
with.”
JILL’S SAMPLE SUMMARY:
“I learned from a stuffy Italian, talking about
buildings, that fragments of a past make a future. He
taught me how to think about things, to put them into my own context so
I can understand. But, he didn’t
teach me everything I know… he still wore a hip-pack.”
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[INSERT YOUR OWN CONCLUSION(S) HERE]
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KAPPA OMICRON NU HONOR SOCIETY
