Misunderstood Activity-Everyone has a Culture
One of the courses that I teach is called Culture and Communication. This course usually has an equal number of international students and domestic students. The concept that is often misunderstood is that “everyone has a culture“.
I find that many domestic students say to me “I don’t have a culture“.
When domestic students say “I don’t have a culture“, they are not seeing the value of their contributions to the class, so I think they feel that they are just going to learn from the international students instead of providing meaningful content and examples as well.
One analogy that I can use to help students see their culture is by comparing culture to an iceberg. This is a common analogy for culture. The idea is that about 10% of an iceberg is visible above the surface of the water and 90% is hidden from view. So when I ask students about the holidays that they celebrate, traditional foods in their homes, clothing, languages spoken, religions practiced, all students can answer those questions about themselves. Those things are “visible” representations of culture. This helps students see that they do, in fact, have a culture and that they have many similarities with their classmates from different cultures. This helps students build relationships with each other and start the process of understanding their own culture and it’s influence in their lives.
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