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2005-01-28 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by tipper 2005-01-28 1:45:23 AM|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Dhimitude 101

Posted by gromgorru 2005-01-28 8:29:03 AM|| 2005-01-28 8:29:03 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 there is nothing wrong with this - they do it for all cultures. In schools where the population of ESL students is high, it's very helpful for a teachers to know what makes them and their parents tick. Of course, the stupid lobby will misuse it to pander rather than educate, but ..hey...what can you do?

Posted by 2b 2005-01-28 9:47:52 AM|| 2005-01-28 9:47:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 where I went to school in metro-Detroit there were plenty of muslims & we never had this sort of problem as I recall. Everyone pretty much respected each other & racial slurs toward arabs/blacks/whites were not tolerated though incidents would occur on occasion between students. If this Mix guy did do what that muslim students claims, then I agree, that's pretty stupid. OTOH, the premise that you should be sensitive to a culture that does not respect or seem to understand the prevailing mores of the society it has emigrated into is moronic. "When in Rome" is a good motto methinks. As grom said, dhimi 101 indeed.

Posted by Jarhead 2005-01-28 10:09:28 AM|| 2005-01-28 10:09:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Motar twice failed to show up in court to testify.

*snicker* The defense probably paid some of her friends or relatives to drop by on the day of court. Looks like that sensitivity training paid off afterall.

Posted by 2b 2005-01-28 10:14:08 AM|| 2005-01-28 10:14:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Because Muslims like to build trust, verbal communication tends to get better results than written documents, she said.

LOL. Arafat was a good example.

Posted by Elmoting Glavinter5987 2005-01-28 10:37:59 AM|| 2005-01-28 10:37:59 AM|| Front Page Top

#6
2b there is nothing wrong with this - they do it for all cultures

Look up reciprocity.

Posted by gromgorru 2005-01-28 11:12:33 AM|| 2005-01-28 11:12:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 This one's worthy of Scrappleface (ironic name for a school kow towing to mooselimbs):

Preston Gassery, principal of the West Bank Community School, echoed that sentiment. "You have to understand how to talk to these kids," he said, adding that the workshop could help guide teacher evaluation and staff development programs at his school.

"They want to develop a sense of you before getting down to business," she said.

And so did the 9/11 highjackers, eh?

Posted by BA 2005-01-28 1:38:30 PM|| 2005-01-28 1:38:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 2b's right about schools doing this frequently for ESL families. The problems occur when, AFTER the school's norms have been related to the families, the families do not always abide by what has been communicated. So if registration starts at 1 and you tell the families that, they come semester after semester at 2:30 or 5 or 7 or on the wrong day. Or you tell them they can't bring their children to the adult classes, but they keep doing it. It's a generational difference, I think. In our parents time, when immigrants were trying to fit in their neighborhoods, they did they best they could of what was expected. Now there is little incentive to assimilate because someone will always be there as a net for them, explaining it again, "rescuing" them again, overlooking it again, etc. In our school, we had a lot of these kinds of problems with students from Somalia and Bosnia. I think consistent, firm and communicative direction from the school is what works best, but sadly, I think we are in a time where some immigrants feel they don't HAVE to assimilate.

Posted by Jules 187 2005-01-28 2:02:34 PM|| 2005-01-28 2:02:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Because Muslims like to build trust, verbal communication tends to get better results than written documents, she said.

It also doesn't leave a paper trail....

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-01-28 2:30:32 PM|| 2005-01-28 2:30:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 it's very helpful for a teacher to know the cultural forces behind a child's thinking. How else can you effectively manipulate them :-)

Seriously - it's good to know these things and it's good to teach them. but jules is right - the problems come when the immigrants start demanding additional resources because they simply don't want to cooperate - or they want to use them as excuses for bad behavior.

One experience that sticks out in my mind was "coining". In Asian cultures, when a child is sick a resperatory illness?, their mothers lovingly put a hot quarter on them to do exactly what, I'm not sure. No, they aren't being branded with a scalding hot quarter. It apparently doesn't hurt - but it leaves bruise marks. They've been doing it for centuries without any apparent problems and they all turn out ok.

As a volunteer, I was freaked out by my first experience of a child with what appeared to be little circular bruises all over his chest. Rather than hauling his mother in for abuse, we were quickly able to determine that mom had just been giving TLC.

Don't tell me it's abuse - until you try it yourself. The bruises disappear after one or two days. There's no need for thousands of teachers, each seeing it for the first time, to be accusing mommy of abuse - clogging social services with new case loads etc when it's just a harmless, loving, cultural practice.

Posted by 2b 2005-01-28 4:15:26 PM|| 2005-01-28 4:15:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Mooselem kulture is a culture of death.

Posted by John Q. Citizen 2005-01-28 4:16:37 PM|| 2005-01-28 4:16:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 "If a Muslim or Arab family is slow to respond to a note sent home by a school or is running late for a teacher conference, school officials should not feel snubbed but should understand the cultural influences behind that behavior."

Oh, I understand perfectly the cultural influences behind that behavior, all right.

Posted by Mark E. 2005-01-28 11:34:01 PM|| 2005-01-28 11:34:01 PM|| Front Page Top

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