Blog #3 - Sticky Notes!

On our second visit with our family, I felt even more anxiety. I knew this time we wouldn’t have our leader, Kelly, to facilitate the discussion. When we arrived, I felt the same immediate language barrier. We sat down and had the children write our names down again to make sure they could pronounce them. To our surprise, there was a new face, the family had a guest with them - he was a young neighbor boy who spoke the same language. The children smiled as we brought out our beginning activity, we were going to play games on an iPad. The games helped the children recognize different animals and words. Next, we began to play with sticky notes. Before arriving, we had labeled the notes with different things around the house. We went into the kitchen and began to ask the family about different appliances and utensils. We found it difficult to teach at first because the neighbor boy was answering all of our questions before the family had a change. We politely asked him to let the family have a chance to speak first. As the family found each object, we would place the sticky note on it. For example, we asked the children where the “oven” was then gave the children the note and had them place it on the correct appliance. After practicing in the kitchen and bathroom. We had each member of the family place the sticky notes without any help. This led to a lot of laughing and a surprising amount of learning. I noticed the mother did not feel comfortable doing the activity with the whole family, so I asked her to do it individually with me. As she went around the bathroom, I could tell she would hold back when she did not know an answer and not guess. I think the mother is in the initial adjustment phase of culture shock or the acculturation phase. I think her children are in the acceptance and integration.

 During our time at the family’s house, I noticed many different things that alerted me to their culture: their rug, language, food on the table, and even the pictures on the wall. This made me think about where these people were coming from and how they felt with us in the room. After observing the mother’s actions, I thought she was experiencing the initial adjustment phase of culture shock. Culture shock is “sustained intercultural contact that requires total immersion in another culture”. Firstly being honeymoon where the person feels happy and blissful in their new home. Secondly, culture shock phase where the person does not like the culture they have moved to and does not want to adapt or change at all. After he or she accepts their new life, the initial adjustment phase begins, where the person will try to find a job and make a new life. Often times this can lead to the mental isolation phase, in which he or she starts to look internally for answers instead of asking others. This can really hurt the person because they stop progressing. Finally, after all of these obstacles are overcome, the person can move into the acceptance and integration phase. I think the mother is between initial adjustment and mental isolation. I have been trying to reach out to her to help her progress because I can see her starting to internalize her thoughts. This could also be attributed to her cultural upbringing also, though.
Next time with the family, I think they would enjoy more games on the iPad and I think the sticky note game was really effective. Over the course of this visit I learned a lot. I learned how truly difficult it is to learn simple words like “door”. When people don’t know these simple words, it can make life very hard because American’s assume these words are basic knowledge. In the future, I think continuing basic, every day words is very important and can help the family more than anything. This knowledge will give me a better outlook on immigrants and refugees in the future. I could never imagine being thrown into a culture I know nothing about. I have empathy for these people, and I really want to see them succeed.