5/19/2021; Week 5: Response to " Culture Paradigms”

 
If there is one thing I feel blessed to have been born in a culturally sensitive country, the product of a history that in the past embraced many immigrants, and influenced by that cultural diversity. I grew up buying bread from the Portuguese baker, ice cream from Haitians, clothes, and appliances from Arabs, shoes from Italians, playing baseball and not soccer because of the influence received from North Americans... and where telling someone: “Ven acá mi negro”, or “Gracias mi gorda”, are expressions of affection and not offense. Laughing at jokes about the Portuguese, about the Chinese, about ourselves... because if there is something we know how to do well, it is to laugh even at our own tragedies. All these experiences allowed me to appreciate the differences of all those cultural paradigms that were mixed in time to generate a culture, the Venezuelan family, where everything was “Chévere”. It is likely that all this diversity has allowed us to integrate very well into other cultures now that we have had to emigrate because of a cruel dictatorship.
 
This ability to see and understand the world from the point of view of other cultures can significantly facilitate coexistence in society. Understanding that the same reality can be interpreted in different ways.
 
"Paradigms are like glasses. When you have incomplete paradigms of yourself or of life in general, it is like wearing glasses that are not right for your eyesight" (Covey, 2003).
 
What is the key? Education centered on principles (respect, service, work, love, responsibility...), because principles are inherent to humanity, and not to a particular culture. Family and school go hand in hand.   
 
It is very important for a Tesol teacher to develop this intercultural awareness in the classroom to be able to determine if he/she is self-centered when interacting with his/her students, or on the contrary, if he/she is capable of decentering himself/herself, in order to perceive their needs and interests. In this way, we can show empathy towards our class. Intercultural education is necessary in order to take into account all the possibilities of human development that allows us all to develop as citizens of the world.
 

References:
 
Culture Paradigms

https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/html5/html5lib/v2.88.5/mwEmbedFrame.php/p/1157612/uiconf_id/43228871/entry_id/0_9w0czg1f?wid=_1157612&iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player_1539879321&entry_id=0_9w0czg1f
 
Cultural Clashes in Defining Beauty https://www.ted.com/talks/delali_bright_cultural_clashes_in_defining_beauty
 
Cultural Differences National Geographic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT0kzF4A-WQ
 
Covey, Sean (2003). The 7 habits of highly effective teenagers. Grijalbo Publishing House.
 
Image by Gerd Altmann at Pixabay