10/11/2017; Lesson 05: Response to Cultural Differences Concerning Time

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Cultural differences concerning time have a tremendous effect on human life. As we were taught by professor Ivers, there are monochronic cultures and there are polychronic cultures and they have impact on communication.

Monochronic cultures usually do one thing at a time. They value orderliness. As professor Ivers taught, they are “oriented to tasks, schedules, and procedures and schedules… schedules and procedures have no reference to logic and human needs.” The time orientation of a culture affects how it values time, and the extent to which it believes it can control time. For example, America is often considered to be future-oriented, as compared to the more present-oriented France and the past-oriented Britain. Often (not always), a past orientation arises in cultures with a long history, like India or China, and a future orientation in younger countries, like the USA.

In polychronic world they are not ruled by schedule they are ruled by relationships; family is important and “they believe it”, as professor Ivers underlines. Polychronic cultures like to do multiple things at the same time. A manager's office in a polychronic culture typically has an open door, a ringing phone and a meeting. All those are going on at the same time. People are their main concern.

A teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages will, probably, have to face the issues emerging when students come from different cultures and social realities. A requirement for a teacher is to know her/his students. It will help her/him to know to which culture they belong and to better understand their attitude. It will help a teacher to orient their behavior towards each other and foster understanding among them. In our entire lives, we all learn. Maybe teaching children to be on time for their class or being friendly to their classmates is not a task that cannot be surpassed.   

10/10/17; Lesson 05: Response to “Cultural Paradigms”

Cultural Paradigms

In his video “Cultural Paradigms”, professor Ivers speak about a great Mexican intellectual, Carlos Fuentes, who said, “We shall know each other, or we shall exterminate each other.” Professor Ivers continues to explain what Carlos Fuentes meant by that. By knowing each other he meant understanding each other’s paradigms - cultural differences. Professor Ivers also teaches us about simple paradigms, like clouds, car, rocks and complex paradigms, like hypocrisy, beauty, graciousness, pride, humility, laziness, being funny, polite, and loyal. Those paradigms differ from culture to culture. They describe how persons are, who they are. 

Reading more about this topic, I came across a sentence from Talmud, “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.” We are what our experiences made us to be. Therefore each individual’s knowledge and the way she/he sees the world is determined by her/his experience. That reminded me the story and poem about the six blind men and the elephant, which President Uchtdorf used to illustrate his talk, “What is the Truth?”

The story tells us that six men from Indostan went to see an elephant though all of them were blind. Each of them took hold of a part of it. One finds the leg and describes the elephant as being round like a tree, another feels the tail and describe elephant like a rope, another touches the tusk and describes the elephant as a spear.

Paradigms are mental and cultural models of reality that people use to interpret the social world around them. They can totally differ from culture to culture. People’s paradigms are influenced by their experiences.

In the end, the six men of Indostan “Disputed loud and long.” Carlos Fuentes was right, “We shall know each other, or we shall exterminate each other.”

 

9/21/17; Lesson 02: Response to “Is the Great American Teacher Dead?”

The title of this article, “Is the Great American Teacher Dead?”, intrigued me. What are the reasons to think something like that? The title implies that the great teacher, American or other nationality, is not quite alive. Then, the subtitle, Principles to Resurrect Meaningful, Effective, and Consciousness Raising Instruction, convinced me that I need to pay much attention to it given that I am preparing to become a teacher.

Using the story about Demosthenes and Satyrus, Dean John Ivers taught that learning can be boring or something powerful and compelling. The difference is made by the teaching process when it is “passionate, positive, inspiring, inviting, meaningful, and transformative”, as John Ivers says. These words brought into my mind the complexity of items a teacher needs to know, plan, and do. My thoughts went to what I learned in the previous courses about cultural diversity, multiple intelligences, learning styles, lesson planning, using various means to make lesson more attractive, knowing and helping students to become involved and learn.

All those teachings had a big impact on me. As a profession, I am a translator, not a teacher. But I taught and teach English to persons of various ages: children and adults. My way of planning lessons improved. The lessons are “richer” in videos, quizzes, activities requiring students’ direct involvement. Those principles can be implemented when teaching an English lesson as well as when teaching a Sunday school lesson. I did that and I was amazed by the results. People’s attention and retention increased.

Professor Ivers’ article enriched my knowledge. I keep thinking of the principles of Invitational Education: trust, optimism, respect, intentionality, and caring. Transformative Education is also inviting to meditation. It is about experiences that creates “a sense that we cannot go back to the way we were before the experience.” I think this is what happens to me as a result of attending these courses at BYUI.