3 Jun 2020 Week 7 Response To Culture and Psychology

Two things that Professor Ivers said caught my attention. One is how the ought self and the real self affects self-esteem. The closer your real self is to the self (ought self) your culture expects you to be the higher your self-esteem. Whereas the greater the difference between the ought self and real self the lower a person's self-esteem will be.

The other thing is how most people tend to conform to the stereotypes that exist in their culture. Some are race-based, such that if you are reminded of your race prior to doing something then you psychologically and unconsciously will adjust your performance to conform to the relevant stereotypes.

I do not consider myself to have low self-esteem although there are times when I put myself down and count myself a failure for the way aspects of my life have turned out. Beyond this, there are expectations, some of which I would guess are cultural, for which my life doesn't conform and this leads me to a feeling of failure or that I don't have a place within society and/or my culture.

I have two adult children still living with me when my culture expects them to have already moved out. I am divorced and still single in a church culture that focuses on the family to the extent that to be unmarried means to not be able to reach the full potential God wants me to reach and I have aged out of the singles branches that the church has which generally are broken into two groups of age 18 to 30 and 31 to 45 leaving out singles who are older than that.

In the United States, I feel there is an expectation that a working person's income generally increases until the time they retire. In my case, my income peaked in 2012 (at age 45) and has declined since then. I currently earn about 10 percent of what I earned at my peak. In the United States, there is no financial help for someone like me who changes careers to avoid becoming disabled. I left the computer industry to avoid losing the use of my hands due to carpal tunnel syndrome and the pain it can cause. I am currently a farmer who worked in dining services to earn money during the offseason.

I did not mean to make this post so much about me and I certainly don't want anyone reading it to feel bad for me as I am doing fine in spite of these challenges but in many cultures, including the United States, it is expected that a person works for a living or else suffer becoming homeless. I have a dim view of such a capitalist system.

Anyway, in the classroom, a teacher that understands the cultural expectations of their students and the real self of their students will be in a much better position to help their students. Especially when those cultural expectations are irrational.

2 Jun 2020 Week 7 Response To Differences in Manners

Different cultures have different manners. Actions considered okay in one culture can be considered bad manners or insulting in another culture. Some of these differences can seem strange or weird. Understanding differences in acceptable manners is important and conforming to acceptable manners for where you are shows your respect for the dominant culture where you are and will help you to not stand out or be considered unrefined and rude.

I learned a number of cultural differences while on my mission in the Dominican Republic. In the Dominican Republic, it is rude to point with your finger and instead you point with your lips. It is also rude to reject food or drink when offered it while visiting someone's home. As missionaries from the United States, we were told not to drink tap water or anything made from tap water because there were parasites in the water that would make us sick. In such a case it was acceptable to tell the people that tap water would hurt us. Because of this many people who we visited regularly would have bottled water or previously boiled water and then use that water to make juice for us.

Knowing the cultures of students in a classroom will allow a teacher to not inadvertently offend or insult students or be interpreted as having bad manners. Further such knowledge will make a teacher aware of possible misunderstandings between students of different cultures and/or between the teacher and students of different cultures. Learning and teaching about cultural differences in manners and how those differences came to be can help everyone understand each other better.