CP #4 Culture
Exchange
Date and Time:
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Location: CIES Student
Lounge
1) What did you learn and share with your conversation partner(s)?
Todays workshop addressed how parts of culture can be observed while other parts are harder to see from the outside. I talked with a woman from Saudi Arabia about dress standards and modesty. It’s an “open symbol” of religious devoutness, but also a personal symbol that is a signal in the culture. It’s not all just about modesty, but something deeper and more cultural than religious that my partner has difficulty explaining. My other partner and I talked about how Americans seem to her to have two faces – lazy and hardworking. We either sit around and do very little to earn what we have or we work, work, work all the time. In her country that is not the case. According to her people pull their weight, do what they can, and don’t hope for a lot more.
1) What did you learn and share with your conversation partner(s)?
Todays workshop addressed how parts of culture can be observed while other parts are harder to see from the outside. I talked with a woman from Saudi Arabia about dress standards and modesty. It’s an “open symbol” of religious devoutness, but also a personal symbol that is a signal in the culture. It’s not all just about modesty, but something deeper and more cultural than religious that my partner has difficulty explaining. My other partner and I talked about how Americans seem to her to have two faces – lazy and hardworking. We either sit around and do very little to earn what we have or we work, work, work all the time. In her country that is not the case. According to her people pull their weight, do what they can, and don’t hope for a lot more.
2) How did the CP session inform your awareness of other cultures?
People in other cultures want to develop their talents and skills and abilities, just as we do, but at least in this case, there is not a compulsivity in their manner of going about it. Education is an honor, a privilege earned by very hard work, not a right that everyone has.
3) How did the CP session inform your awareness of your culture?
The “work hard and get ahead”, the “race to the top,” the “gotta win at all costs” mentality is part of the American dream that is largely hidden until you enter into some system like a university or a business setting. Furthermore, It is puzzling to foreign students to see students take college so blithely in hand, not seeing it as a privilege, but a a right.
4) How could you apply what you learned to your teaching practice?
I’m an achievement-oriented person, always striving for something. It helps me to realize there are other ways to arrive at a goal than to go about getting compulsively. I need to recognize that our foreign students are here to learn and that the energy and care they put into their work may look different from mine.
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