Module 14 Lesson Plan 2 - Cross Cultural Psychology

In Search of Human Origins,
Part II

Eur-Asian Daily Language Bloopers

In a Bangkok temple:
"It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man."

In a Tokyo bar:
"Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts."

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
"We take your bags and send them in all directions."

crosscultural.com

Spend a Moment (European currencies)

webofculture.com

Review - Group Thoughts

1.  What does the class think was the purpose (to inform, to persuade, to discuss etc.) behind each class activity in the previous class or Internet meeting? 

2.  Which course objective was under consideration?

Class/Internet Activities

1. Family Tree Reports continue.

2.  Continue to watch In Search of Human Origins. 

What was it that made us human?  Was it anatomy?  Was it art?  Was it our tools and artifacts?  If the answer is anatomy, then our destiny has been importantly influenced by biology.  If the answer is art, tools, and artifacts, then our destiny has been importantly influenced by culture - that series of social processes that are learned and passed from each generation to the next, and that are created by man himself.  Today's video examines fifty thousand generations - perhaps a million years during which hunter-gatherers emerged from Africa and became either nomadic or crop growers who traveled by following herds, or who settled in to inhabit the earth.  Trade, travel, and survival may have been precipitated by conditions like disease or environmental changes that sometimes threatened or occasioned mass genocide.  Other theories suggest that man evolved in each part of the globe separately and does not necessarily come out of Africa as a migratory species.  Enjoy In Search of Human Origins - Episode #3 - The Creative Revolution!

3.  We continue the Family Tree Briefings.  Turn in your typewritten report on your Family Tree during the next class meeting.

Summary

1.  During the semester we began by defining culture as learned behaviors, not biologically transmitted from one generation to the next.  

2. You observed that different societies talk and interact very differently about some common human problems like marriage, family, life and death, religion, politics, economics, raising children, etc.  Some of that experience came from observing other nations.

3.  You studied in some detail how American immigrants acquired learned behaviors.

4.  Your family made you pretty much who you are.  Having completed your family tree, it's time to reflect on the learned behaviors that you have acquired and which you may wish to pass on to others.

5.  Whether biology or culture primarily determine the future of your offspring remains an open question.  The video In Search of Human Origins suggests that nature has certainly had the longer influence - some billions of years to produce a human species that recognizes itself within the last million years.  But the video also suggests that our roles in life are no longer influenced primarily by nature; rather our roles are the result of the process of nurture.  We have learned to be who we are as the result of sitting at our mother's knee or by working with our family or co-present adults.  

6.  A different video series called In My Country - An International Perspective examines the issue of nature versus nurture differently.  This video series says that if biology determines our gender roles in life, then gender roles should not vary across cultures.  But if culture determines our gender roles during our lives, we should be able to observe considerable diversity across cultures.  You can get the opportunity, if you study this video series, to draw your own conclusions by listening to how students from Taiwan, Mexico, Fiji, India, the Caribbean, Israel, Lebanon, Sweden, England, Zaire, China, and El Salvador respond to the same set of questions about homeland.

Homework

1.  Read Chapter Twenty-Two "Witchcraft!" pages 118-121in Cross-Cultural Perspectives in America.  Answer the following questions in your notebook:

2. See that you take the opportunity to present your family tree briefing to the class and that you meet the following obligations:

Customary European Behaviors (Other than my own)

"All people smile in the same language" ---- Unknown

The setting sun and the ship signify that we have completed our thematic excursion - the multi-continental journey we have called
"In Search of Human Origins."