For the conversation club tonight, we chose the topic of culture shock. I found a really cute cartoon that demonstrated the common feeling of unease with greetings in new cultures, but how it is so much easier now with covid-19 because we all just stand at a distance and wave. No hugging or kissing or handshakes to navigate anymore!
We began with a quick overview of what culture shock is and asked people to share any experiences they had with it. Then we put them in groups and did a station rotation with different questions about culture shock. Ideally, we wanted them to be listening and recording 3 things that they learned or surprised them about a different culture as they completed the activity, but again we were pretty terrible at enforcing that. It was nice to have Mara join us as well because that meant 3 of the 4 rooms had an instructor to moderate and help the discussion at all times, even though she was just participating as a student. We had 16 students attend which was awesome and I met some new upper-level students I had not worked with before. I really enjoyed the conversation club and I think I will look to volunteer with a local one for the community in the future. It’s a great way to gain new perspectives!
