Differ phenomenon from analysis.

Students' behavior might not out of

teachers assumptions.

I thought some of the students were not

working hard one day, when I was teaching at
an after-school program of Mandarin. I was
confused about the students behavior, because
they were always well-behaved. I asked why,
and one of the older students said two of them
were having new teeth. It can be very exciting
for first and second graders to have new teeth,
and that's young kids "culture" to value it a lot.
So why don't we just spend some time on
learning about new teeth? I thought to myself.
So we started to learn teeth in Mandarin, and
all the students paid me enough attention.

Chinese students learn culture

only in this way. I spent a lot of
time memorizing all the flags of
at least 90 countries, and their
famous foods. --this kind of
learning also cut down their
personal connections to culture,
as well as the whole curricula.
But here in a school, Annie (a
second grader) was very
conscious about her Irish
background, both in terms of 4
Fs, and how to treat people of
different cultural background. In
a children-friendly classroom,
she can feel the motivation to
think actively.

Flag

Famous
people

Festival

Food

It is concrete and tangible for kids, so it is important in

understanding "culture", but it is not dynamic, and does
not promote students' critical thinking. In this kind of
teaching, students were looking for concrete standardized
answers, but in real life, there is no standardized answers.

Proposition

Social
economic

Personal
experience
private beliefs
declared beliefs
public beliefs
(does not have to match private beliefs)
In terms of
behavior:

accepted as true,
not only based on
logic and
empirical
considerations,
but also beliefs

Beliefs

Values

4 Fs
(traditional
pedagogy)

Personality

Perspectives
know the students as whole
persons with individual
differences

past experience is
helpful in dealing with the
present situations

Forms

Selina was from China,but her

personality was boy-like, which is
totally different from a "typical"
Chinese girl. But why should we
demand her act as our imagination?
She is herself and that is totally fine.

feelings are ambivalent

operating values
(abide by)

Rules and
public values

Content
of
concept

privilege,
right...

public values
(membership)

For individual
Culture

The way
to think

Recipes

Feedback

The way to
actually do

Bring all
related
disciplines
together

Routines
and
Customs
Communication
System of
Customs

Meaning
and
Function

Processing,
dynamic

Created using Inspiration 9 by Inspiration Software, Inc.

Reference:
Goodenough, W. H. (1981). Culture, language, and
society. Benjamin-Cummings Pub Co.