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It is my intent to help you understand the importance of cultural sensitivity and mindfulness in the classroom by sharing some real-life scenarios and relating them to a teaching environment. When we are going to live and work in another country perhaps the first step would be to think about the seemingly odd behaviors of foreigners in your own home country and try to see things from a different perspective. To give an example there was a time in my life when I was in a relationship with someone who was originally from Cambodia and their core family had moved here also. Her parents, and siblings all lived in the United States of America where I was originally from and we all currently were living. She was very close to her family which is as I learned a traditional value for most Cambodian culture. Being such a closely-knit family, I was honored to be invited to every yearly blessing, party and spiritual event. There are of course the basics such as not wearing shoes in the home, and certain ways to speak to elders however there was a tradition or more to the point a rule that I was not aware of and my ignorance of this tradition/rule caused a great deal of hurt feelings and insult. Fortunately, all ended well, and I was forgiven due to my partner immediately taking all blame for not telling me this rule. When I did what I did you would have thought someone had just slapped the grandmother or defecated on the couch, but no it was much less obvious to me. What I did that caused the Monks and everyone in the room to stop what they were doing and stare at me in disgust and horror was how I put my hands on the heads of two children who I was playing with as I grasps my hands around their heads in a playful manor as a “that a boy” type gesture the room fell silent and the children were immediately removed from playing with me. I learned an important lesson this day, that it is extremely rude to place your hands on the heads of children. It’s a no-no to do this to anyone however it was particularly frowned upon when done to children. I do not need to understand why this is a tradition in Cambodia, however I do need to know that it is a rule if I am going to be visiting and especially teaching there. It is a common gesture in my family and culture to pat someone on the head and say good job or to be playful. In an educational environment this can but an immediate stop to any educational lesson and potentially employment depending on the severity of offense. The second example I would like to share is that of the reverse scenario. When I was a child my family moved from Washington state in the USA to Naples Italy and before we made the move the entire family went through cultural training classes. As a child I paid very little attention as I had no attention to give which left me lacking much of the knowledge being presenting to me in these courses. When I began school in Naples Italy, I found myself fiddling with my ear randomly and I had never noticed that this was a thing I did when I was bored. Apparently, this gesture that I was making at the time was that of an adult nature while sitting in this class staring at the teacher. Now as far as I was concerned, I was staring off into nowhere, and being fidgety as a young learner can often do, however I was inadvertently making advances on my teacher of adult nature. Now this was completely innocent of course and only lead to me having to be educated as to what and why my actions were in appropriate which lead to great embarrassment on my part and the teachers. The point of these two examples are that we can never know how our normal way of interacting with our world is different depending on where we are, but we should always try to learn as much as possible when traveling outside of our “norm”. Spend time learning the culture to the best of your ability, take a cultural course when available and my favorite is to reach out to friends or make new ones. It has been my experience that admitting to not understanding something and asking for help is always appreciated as it shows a honest interest in the people you are living and working with and their culture. Always be mindful and open to things being different then your “norm”.
