Kaiser – cultural influences

I believe that culture is probably the underlying theme of how we see the world.  And so that when a child engages in a behaviour that we find challenging, the reason we find it challenging is probably very culturally-based.  Because a behaviour that I might find challenging in my first world, North Canadian culture is not necessarily a behaviour that would be challenging in another country where that behaviour is considered acceptable.  So I think we need to understand ourselves first and the influence of our own culture on our expectations of children’s behaviours and abilities.  And then as an educator, we need to recognize all the gifts that every child brings with them through their culture because every child learns the skills they need to become the best citizens possible within their own world.  And so some of those skills may not be skills that you really want to encourage in your classroom.  And an example of that is that some cultures when you’re interested in something, you get involved.  You start talking.  Everybody starts talking at once and this shows that you’re listening, that you’re interested, that you’re caring.  But when we teach kids – is to raise their hands, to wait their turn, to talk one at a time.  So he doesn’t even realize when he’s talking as someone else is talking that this might be inappropriate.  So we need to see why are they behaving that way and recognize it and respect it and find ways to make that culture appropriate in the classroom.  So explaining that, you know, in this room if you need to talk that’s terrific but we’d prefer it if you raised your hand.   But we’ll have times when everybody can all talk at once so you can feel valued too and I think that’s very important.  I also think that the culture influences how we respond to that behavior. So we need to understand the culture, our own culture and the culture of the children and their families and respect it and find a place for it.