5/21/2019; Lesson 5: Response to "Cultural Paradigms"

 

 

The dictionary describes paradigm as a typical example or pattern of something; a model. And we are raised to believe in many of these models and patterns. I was once told the story of a woman that, whenever she cooked a ham, she would cut a part of the bone sticking out, and when asked about why she would do that, she simply said, because that's how my mom used to do it, then when they asked her mom, she said it was because she didn't have a big enough pan to put the ham inside, so she had to cut a part of it. So, we should always be questioning the paradigms of our culture.

 I was born in Brazil, but as I grew up, I started to question some of the practices in that culture, to the point where I became sort of detached from it, I never felt comfortable with the way some of the things were done.  After I spent some time in the US, I began to see a different perspective of things, and compare. Same thing with when I traveled to Europe. Now I'm living in China and I have been to many Asian countries, and I can say, even within neighboring countries of people that virtually look the same, they can behave very differently.

For example, one of the most shocking things I've witnessed in china is people smoking and spiting in elevators. For a western mind like mine, this is unfathomable. And I can see how for some people this is starting to be uncomfortable, but most people think that is perfectly normal.

The BYU professor has given many other examples in his video. But the bottom line is, as teachers we should be aware of other people's paradigms and cultural differences. "We shall know each other or we shall exterminate each other"