Art Un ticle I.1 ited Sta In the ates News - Woodring College of ...

Each of the behaviors listed above may be in conflict with communication rules for a givencultural group. The teacher's task is to determine through reading, discussion and observationwhich perceived behaviors could have a different cultural significance for the groups representedin the classroom.What Do We Do About Cultural and Communicative Sources of StudentMisbehavior?While the majority of students, including those from minority groups, learn, accept and conformto the rules of schools, cultural differences may play an important role in apparent disciplineproblems in the school. These differences cannot account for all student misbehavior, yet manydiscipline problems may result from students' failure to know, accept or conform to school normswhich are either divergent or incongruous with their own cultural or communicative norms.School personnel should be open to examining the causes of perceived misbehavior in theclassroom. In those cases where school or classroom norms are intolerant of cultural differences,revisions of school norms would seem to be most appropriate. Where school norms are generallycongruent with norms across the cultural spectrum of the school community, the school has aresponsibility to teach those norms to the student. One cannot expect that all students come toschool with prior knowledge or acceptance of school norms. In any case, schools, like allinstitutions, must establish reasonable rules of conduct, but these rules should be sensitive to thecultural assumptions, values and communication expectations of the total school community.The following activities are useful in considering cross cultural communication issues foraddressing school discipline problems:1. Devise a plan for teaching all students the acceptable communicative behaviors of theschool and the justification for them.2. Devise a plan for teaching students the nature, origin and need for rules to govern schooland classroom communicative behavior, while simultaneously recognizing the validity ofother behaviors in different settings, such as students' homes or communities.3. Determine which school or classroom norms may be in conflict with cultural orcommunicative norms of specific cultural groups.4. Engage in discussions with colleagues on how school or classroom norms might berevised to make them more sensitive to the various cultural groups in the schoolcommunity.SummaryThis booklet has reviewed several basic concepts relating to culture, communication andlanguage and has shown how communication issues affect human behavior in general and schoollife in particular. Also, suggestions have been made relative to instruction, assessment,interpersonal relationships and discipline. You might now re-take the introductory test fromTable I. Any change reflected in your score will give you a measure of what you have learnedabout culture and communication. To put into use what you have learned, consider working withyour colleagues to:1. Integrate cross cultural communication topics and materials into the curriculum;© 2008 Dr. Catherine CollierAll Rights Reserved75