CP #4 - Paige Dabney

Date/Time: 4 February 2016, 1-1:50pm (Cultural Workshop)
Location: CIES Lounge
1) What did you learn and share with your conversation partner(s)?
Today we discussed culture in education. Specifically, we talked about expectations/norms on the students' end and the teachers' end. I felt that similarities were much greater in this regard than in others because of the increasing globalization of education. One notable discovery was that the students in Vietnam stand up when the teacher comes in the classroom and only sit down when (s)he tells them too. They do the same at the end of class and the teacher leaves the room first. We noted that the major differences in the U.S. system higher education system is that students are encouraged to ask questions (and can even challenge the teacher to some extent!), instructors have open office hours that students are encouraged to come to, and instructors generally have greater flexibility in their schedules for work, research, and meetings.

2) How did the CP session inform your awareness of other cultures?
I realized that the classroom culture across universities is much more universal than in grade schools. I believe that a great part of this is because 1. grade schools rely much more on teachers functioning to some extent as parents and 2. because the western university model has a great influence on other systems in order to create globally accepted accreditations.

3) How did the CP session inform your awareness of your culture?
I was most interested in analyzing how acceptable it is to challenge your teacher. It is a difficult balance, and I can see how it is so difficult for my partners to discern the minute difference between being an involved student and being disrespectful.

4) How could you apply what you learned to your teaching practice?
I think it's important to directly address norms of teacher-student relations. It needs to be discussed what is appropriate and not appropriate (ex. is a student-teacher lunch together acceptable?), as well as teacher expectations and limitations on student participation in class, i.e. is their excessive participation impeding the lecture or bordering on disrespect?