Cultural Chasms

There are times in my life as an international educator when I encounter situations that baffle me. Take an article I read on June 6 in a UAE newspaper, The National, which described a mass wedding involving 400 bridegrooms (but no brides) who feasted on 205 goats and 20 camels all paid for by the host city’s Municipality at an estimated cost of 5 million dirham (about $1.4 million). The brides will get their own reception on June 30 after they sign the marriage papers with their grooms. There is so much in this local interest story that is beyond my cultural experience or understanding. I think of these times as Cultural Chasms.

I wonder how often my students encounter Cultural Chasms of their own in my classroom. I am a white, middle class, American woman; I bring that cultural background into my teaching. However, my students are from a wide range of cultural backgrounds and experiences. The recent trend of “multicultural” education advocates celebrating the cultural holidays of the students within a class (including Kwanzaa; I have yet to meet anyone who celebrates this holiday, despite living overseas for over 20 years and six of those in Africa), reading books that reflect the cultures of the students, and even learning words in the languages of the students’ homes as a way to honor their cultures. I do not dispute that these ideas are better than ignoring cultural differences; however, they seem like symbolic gestures from a Eurocentric perspective, and I do not think this is enough to cross the Cultural Chasms.

Instead, I advocate establishing a classroom with a true openness to accepting and learning from each other’s cultures within the class, including my own WASPy culture. I am learning to look past my own biases, which judge the unfamiliar as bad, and consider the value inherent in the situation. For example, in the mass wedding story above, I admire how strongly the Emiratis hold onto their traditions despite the rapid changes around them. These traditions provide a stable foundation for their society. In my other postings, I marveled at the Kenyan optimism, at how each day was a celebration of what they had instead of focusing on what they didn’t have. I envied the extended Ecuadorian families; my students spent weekends full of grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts. And in China, I reflected on how the good of the group and wishes of the family took priority over the individual’s in a society trying to build a coherent common vision.

If all of us in a classroom—teacher and students—can work to establish a community with a spirit of openness to learning from each other, then we will build the true meaning of “multicultural understanding”. We can all learn words from each other’s languages, read books from around the world, and celebrate holidays as well as day-to-day triumphs. We can share stories that bind us in commonalities and help us understand our differences. In this way, we will bridge the Cultural Chasms.