During this class we had various examples and excercises which was connected to the the title of this challenge. For example did we have an excercise where we had to write an impression of another country we had visited, after that we had to tie all of our impressions together and find a red line in all of it.
We watched a movie as well, where being open minded was the theme.
When i present my self in other countries I presnet my self with name, country education and depending on the meeting situation a relevant describtion/small talk about who I am. I have during the years and my travels experienced an notice that the danes are rather free and unformale in the way we present ourself to strangers we never have met before.
Learning by addition
assimilation is the individuals addaption of impressions from the enviorenment into previously develpoed psycologigal structures. By means of this assimilation is additions and extension to excisting cognitive schemes or knowledge structures. In the contex of assimilation one could talk of learning by addition.
Learning by accommodation:
Accommodation, which takes place when impressions from the enviorenment can not fit into excisting schemes, consists dissociation and reconstruction, by which means the scemes are altered so that the impressions can be taken in. Accommodation thus inplies a going beyond, or a transcendent of, the readyness allready developed, and can be characterised as transcendent learning.
An example of accomodation of new knowledge is the story/statement from Ferdinand Magellan. He saw the shaddow of the moon as he was sailing the world, and in that way he could calculate that the earth was not flat as the church was telling people, but round.
Culture shock:
A culture shock is when you travel/meet a new culture and it's much more diffenrent than what you assumed and was expecting. It can be everything from the meaning of religion, working habbits, food and generel social values.
I don't believe that's possible in any way to avoid a culture shock when vissiting a new and different culture.But you can prepare yourself by reading about the country, being openminded and villing to take the shock as something positive and learn a lot instead of being sceptical.
If we we acknowledge the unknown and different I believe we will learn much more and understand the culture much easier.
If we can accomodate a situation theres is a risk of seeking understanding through:
- Chauvinism (danish girls are cheap and smoke in public)
- Disgust (all Indians are filthy as they eat by their hand)
- Prejudice (Grown-ups in Ghana accepr to be yelled at)
We now got 3 different pictures handed out, showing 3 different Schools. One in Laos, one in Denmark and one in Eritrea, and should make posters asking questions to the teaching situation and enviorenment.
