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Culture
Two essential Qs:
- What is culture?
- What are some ways to teach it?
DEFIN: patterns of values & behaviors that are commonly held
- Learned
- Dynamic not static
- Not everyone agrees: dominant within a cultural group and dominant w/in a country
- Iceberg: we see the tip, which represents the whole but is not the whole
WAYS to teach: something I continue to wrestle w/ and re-do
- Important: start w/ ourselves and US
Why: BOTH b/c weÕre inherently interesting!! & b/c it helps avoid ÒotheringÓ
- PROBLEM: itÕs ABSTRACT, thus hard to teach so. . .
Go for concrete, esp. w/ younger grades
IDENTITY MAPPING: asking what does the class have in common
CULTURAL OBJECTS: asking what does the class have in common
PROVERBS (see attached list) & METAPHORS
FOREIGN CULTURES
Remind students or introduce here the concept of ÒotheringÓ
Possible readings:
- "Body Ritual among the Nacirema"
- "The Sacred Rac"
- Gila Monsters Greet You at the
- Airport (The first two are funny, short articles spoofing American cultural habits. They can be found online through googling their titles.)
- A fine article by a Nigerian woman on how people in the US donà see who she is; published in the Christian Science Monitor as "I Am Not Just an African Woman," by Bunmi Matory. (available through BU African Studies)
Going for the concrete:
Proverbs: for a short selection by country can be found at http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/tips/six.htm
Material objects from various African cultures. (available from BU African Studies Center)
Literature: e.g., AchebeÕs Things Fall Apart; picture books about families such as FatumaÕs New Cloth.
For a detailed database by age: www.africaaccessreview.org
Film: e.g., do identity map of the captain of the soccer team in "The Leopards of Zanzibar" from National Geographic as 1-hr in their series "Africa"
Barbara B. Brown
Director,
Outreach Program
prepared 5/06