Dennis CP#4

The cultural workshop #4 was about socialization. We were tasked with finding differences between the expected norms in our cultures, and explaining how and why these cultural social behaviors and expectations were learned. This was interesting in the sense that most classroom behaviors were similar between the U.S., Peru, and Saudi Arabia. We all are respectful to teachers, participate in class and extracurricular activities, maintain eye contact with our teachers, and have homework. There were differences of course; in Saudi Arabia genders are educated separately, they don’t get verbal feedback in front of their peers, and it is very rare that a student would disagree with a teacher. There seemed to be no office hours for meeting teachers about assignments in Saudi Arabia. The main discussion we had was about the relative viewpoint we had of respect and how to properly show respect. In a way, it seemed that discussion and debate was sign that you respected someone enough to discourse with them. However, it could be seen as disrespectful if you were to challenge a teacher’s authority by disagreeing. Of course, it depends largely on circumstance, but U.S. classrooms seem to have a higher tolerance for the practice of expressing differences of opinion in public.