Response Paper 2

Questions about culture

1) How do your beliefs, values, and cultural upbringing influence the way you behave?

We usually behave according to our values and beliefs, if we were taught that one thing is correct and other one is incorrect then it is too hard to change your mind. Everyone act according to its culture, for example: religions make big differences between what we believe, some religions believe in just one God and others believe in more than one; also in some countries you have to dress up with some specific clothing, and when we do some particular signs with our hands in one country could mean something different from what I understood in another country. Culture it’s complicated because it is too complex, but we need to try to understand and respect each of those cultures.

2) How does it feel when others see you as different—or as an outsider?

It is kind of weird because at the beginning is hard to understand why they see you different, however, once that you start knowing each other it becomes a very interesting relationship mainly because both understand better each other`s culture. I think that culture is about respect; when you respect someone else beliefs then they will return you the courtesy.

3) How do others' beliefs, values, and cultural upbringing influence the way they behave?

Globalization has become a key element when we talk about mixing cultures. Media is responsible for most of the influence that we receive from other countries, mainly from the USA. This influence has made us adapt the way we behave and even has changed some of our values. Nowadays is more common to be able to identify ourselves with people from other countries, however, their customs, practices, and traditions remain and have a big influence in the way they behave.

Week 2: What defines culture?

Second class was more related with understanding the components of culture, things like perspectives, practices, communities, persons, products, etc. It is important to relate all these concepts because culture is not only one element, it is all of them. Perspectives are the things that we are not able to see like values and beliefs, even though this is the most important element that defines a culture.

Week 1: Group work and teaching strategies

What I enjoyed the most about last class was the possibility of working in groups in order to discover and give real meaning to the concepts presented. We had the opportunity to figure it out what culture is and why is it so relevant to know about the culture that we are studying. I also liked the fact that the teacher gave us some ideas of what strategies we can use to teach not only culture, but also some other courses. I have high expectations for this course because I would like to learn more about the customs and the points of view of other cultures, especially the one that we are studying, with the purpose of teach it a lot much better.

Awesome Video

Hi everyone...I want to recommend you the following video...It shows how perspectives or interpretations depends on your culture. It was created by a student from the Veritas University. Enjoy!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf76qGmVZw8

I`m back

I did this blog for the web 2.0 course, and now I`m going to use it for the American culture course. Please feel free to post whatever you want.