5/30/2019; Week 6: Response to Personal Space Differences.

For this part of our lesson, we learned about a variety of personal space needs from around the world.  Professor Ivers of BYUI, in his lecture, mentioned how 'personal' the personal items of Americans are.  In other places, it would be a non-issue if one roommate used another's Iron and ironing board, but in the US, it is expected to ask permission first.

One of my sisters' taught ESL in Spain for a few years, traveling to other European locations on school holidays.  She became accustomed to the European "quiet" talking.  Upon returning to the USA, my sister was often asked to speak louder, since Americans are accustomed to loud speaking. 

This lesson, and my sister's experience, moves me to speculate that some of the "rude American" label that we from the US have in other places may simply be the cultural differences in our speech volume.  (I hope that is all it is!) 

For classroom purposes, it would help to know a students home culture.  Those from Scandinavian countries could be seated in the front perhaps, to allow them to have more personal space in front of them, and help them feel more comfortable.  In small group activities, the teacher could arrange the perimeters of the space, helping the students understand their personal boundaries.

In general, it would seem that friendly tolerance on the part of each person, would be the best way to help the class feel comfortable with each other.

Comments

  1. JohnaJune 1, 2019 at 2:54 AM

    Being Asian, I am also accustomed to "quiet speaking", but by being exposed to other cultures is a good way to help me learn to adjust to personal space differences. I also believe in the importance of friendly tolerance and how students can adapt and adjust to each other's differences.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeanineJune 1, 2019 at 3:08 PM

    Yes, that's a good way to be; 'friendly tolerance on the part of each person'. Most of the time I believe we just don't know where someone is coming from; we judge according to our culture because that's all we know.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6/6/2019; Week 7: Response to Culture and Psychology

Professor Ivers' lecture (BYU-I circa 2013) hit a lot of points today: witchcraft/mass hysteria, mental illness, cultural stereotypes, the effect culture has on self-esteem, and more !  The point of the lecture was that our brains take what our culture teaches us - whatever that may be- and train us as people to act as though the culture was 100% accurate. I would really like to address the mental illness aspect, since mental illness runs frolicking through my family, but it would take a couple thousand words, at least, and that is too much for the purposes of this assignment.  Instead, I  will touch briefly on Schizophrenia from my own personal studies and family experience.  The hallmark of Schizophrenia is confused thinking. There is no cure, only treatment.  Each afflicted person must consciously sift through what their brain is bombarding them with and decide what is accurate.  People with firm standards and strong support systems - no matter what ...
Read more

6/4/2019; Week 7: Response to Cross-Cultural Students in the Classroom

This weeks focus on Cross-Cultural students in the classroom was puzzling to me at first.  Professor Ivers lecture (BYU-I circa 2015) was principally concerned with the perceived differences in the US educational system for Asian students.  Some of the comments were positive: Being able to interact with the professors, ask questions and have dialogue. But the comments regarding American students were negative. I am 53, and live in the South, so perhaps I am atypical for most university students, but I was shocked at some of the things the American students did as well.  Interrupt the teacher ?  Eat in class?  Read the newspaper (or use a phone) during class?  Walk out of class?  I can't imagine doing any of these things in class. It seems very rude to me. As a teacher, I would have to adjust to the students of my own native country more than to the students of other countries ! However, the list included a few things that I've seen myself while tea...
Read more

6-11-2019; Response to Deep Culture in the Elementary School

This week we are going over how to -teach- young kids about other cultures.  This seems like a Very Large task, yet one that has the opportunity to be fun - if only I can figure out a way how!  Professor Ivers shared some thoughts about the benefits of having understanding of more than just your own culture.  Since each culture has distinct traits and ways of thinking, learning to think with more than one point of view can jump start creativity and innovation.  For example, think of the different styles of body decoration favored by different cultures in different locations.  Some places worked metal to make jewelry, other places used shells, bone, fibrous textiles, and even scars on the skin to decorate the body. None of these items is inherently good or bad, just different from each other.  Imagine then, what happened when various cultures interacted- what might a textile using culture think to do with metal? Probably something quite different from the ...
Read more