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November 18, 2005
Cultural Differences in the Classroom
About 30 percent of the students in my MIS class are Asian and most of them are not native to the United States. Several terms ago I was trying to engage a young Asian woman in a dialog -- I wanted her to disagree with me. After four or five volleys on my part, it became clear that it just wasn't going to happen -- she simply would not disagree with me. Her discomfort with our interaction was so great, I asked to speak with her after class. She told me that she had been taught that it was never polite or correct for her to disagree with an older man. Even more problematic, when I could get her to disagree with me, she felt guilty.
Her honest description sent me into a bit of a tailspin. Invoking guilt in my students is not my goal. I began to wonder if I was being arrogant -- after all, who am I to foist my culture, my beliefs, onto her. But discussion with other students caused me to realize that she and others have come to the United States to study because they want to learn business American-style. And, at least for the companies in which I've worked, give-and-take, open discussion, open disagreement, even, at times, open argument are common -- and it would be hard for any new employee to have much impact if he or she felt guilty disagreeing with an older man. So, ultimately, I decided to continue my discussion-, sometimes disagreement-oriented teaching style. But the interchange caused me to realize one more time that there's a lot more going on in my classroom that what's in Chapter 6.
Posted by DavidK at November 18, 2005 02:37 PM | Permalink