...reflective blogging...

Last week, I could not skype so I decided to write a reflective post about my experience with the forums so far. First of all, I have to say that I really like our forums because I consider them very useful means not only to know our peers at Dickinson College better, but also to help us coming to terms with the American culture as a whole. Moreover, I’m sure they enable our American peers to have an insight on our own world as well!


This week, I’ve felt particularly involved in the ones concerning death penalty and “pentitismo”, which originated from questions posed by some Dickinson students. Actually, the image of Italy that came out from the discussion was not a very comfortable one: criminals does not seem to be punished here and “mafiosi” are usually set free in turn of a little collaboration. Well, I admit that there are lots of defects in the way in which the Italian system of justice is organized and this is nothing to be proud of. Anyway, we should not generalize. And this is the case also with America. If some American movies and serials (actually, l watch them…but this is another story…;-))are populated with blondes only concerned with their physical beauty, this does not mean that all Americans are concerned with appearances (by the way, that was the topic of another forum).


All in all, I think that the questions in the forums also contributed to give us an idea of how our country is perceived abroad and to foster a reflection on the way our system is organized. Our culture is of course constantly under our own eyes, so we may not be able to analyze it in a neutral way. Paradoxically enough, we are sometimes aware of some of the most negative aspects of our own culture only when someone from outside “notices” them. And, at the same time, we may not be able to retrieve the positive aspects of our own culture for which other countries know us and which distinguish us from them.

(photo taken from flickr)

Evaluating intercultural competence...

Hi everybody!

I’ve just taken the Yoga questionnaire and I have to say I’d never had the chance to test my intercultural competence before. I think this concept is quite blurred and complicated but actually it refers, in a rather abstract and indefinite way, to something we should be pretty familiar with. I mean, most of us have studied “mediazione linguistica e culturale” during the triennio and that was all about trying to gain a certain amount of competence as far as foreign languages and cultures are concerned.

I think I’m going to start my reflections by re-citing the fascinating quotation that introduced the Yoga form:

How shall I talk of the sea to the frog,
if it has never left his pond?
How shall I talk of the frost to the bird of the summerland,
if it has never left the land of its birth?
How shall I talk of life with the sage,
if he is prisoner of his doctrine?

-Chung Tsu, 4th Century B.C.-


I’ve personally found it awesome and I think it contains, or better anticipates, the core of hundreds and hundreds of academic studies made on the subject. “Looking out is looking in” is really nothing more than what you get while you’re dealing with a different culture: you basically “go back” to your own world with a rather different attitude (or at least you should do that). So, I think that we really become aware of the implications of our culture while we are living abroad or even when we have the chance to come into contacts with people from other cultures (let’s think about the meeting with Chiara or the Skype exchange).

I found the form pretty useful and interesting: it really contributed to foster a reflection on my own attitude towards the difference…anyway, I think that such forms have their limits too. I mean, on the one hand, they can be useful to assess our intercultural competence at a certain point of our experience and to be able to “phrase it”( to express it with concrete words); yet, on the other hand, they are less useful when it comes to evaluate progress since, to me, you can’t learn to be more “culturally competent” than you already are. I may be wrong but I personally think it is something that has to be found within ourselves as human beings and that it mainly depends on our past experience of diversity…and this is not something you can easily “mould” as much as you like.

As it has already been stated in the introductory pages, it is not that easy to teach someone intercultural competence. And, to be honest, I don’t think it is something that can be taught at all! Maybe, it could be possible to affect one’s own attitude towards “the other”, to overcome some cultural prejudices, to be more respectful towards differences…but you can’t hope to teach empathy or even curiosity to a narrow-minded person! (This is just my opinion;-))

Interestingly enough, I noticed that the knowledge of a foreign language is considered of utmost importance when one has to deal with a different culture. I perfectly agree with this statement. I think there’s nothing more fascinating than leaning how to express opinions, emotions, needs in a language which is not yours and being able, in return, to get those overtones that are inevitably lost if you can rely on nothing but translations.

As you can see, my reflections focus on SOME aspects of the YOGA form…anyway, it could really take me pages to talk about this topic more in depth…Hopefully we will be able to discuss it on Monday!




(photo taken from Flickr)

Bye bye

LET'S SKYPE NOW!

Hello everybody!


Today I had my first experience with Skype and it was just AMAZING!!! I know it may sound weird but I had never used skype before so the whole thing was completely new for me! (You have to consider that the now old-fashioned chats are still impressive new tools for me…ah ahahha;-))


I would say that it was a bit awkward at first…I was a bit nervous at the idea of having a phone call via Internet, so I arrived at the lab 20 minutes earlier in order to get prepared to do that (just to see if the pc worked, if the head cuffs were ok and so on and so forth) and when the American peer called me I just got stuck…I said to myself: “Ok, Alessia, now you have to talk…via Internet...no panic, no babbling”. Then I just felt at ease and started talking and it was really awesome…I was communicating in real time with a person who lives far across the Ocean…WOW!


As planned, we discussed about the organization of our educational systems and about some of the two questionnaires’ results. Yet, I liked the way our conversation went on: it didn’t seem as if it followed a precise plan, it went just on spontaneously on both sides and without any embarrassing break. It was really satisfying to see that the American students are really excited about getting to know us and of course we feel the same way ! We didn’t talk in Italian all the time because we knew that they have been studying it only for two years but I really appreciated their efforts!


What struck me most was the fact that our American peers didn’t have any notion of the concept of ‘meritocrazia’. Moreover, we arrived to the conclusion that generally our expectations about a foreign country do not correspond to the reality because we tend to sort of idealize it relying on what we see in movies or on TV…


I’m really looking forward to the next skype exchange in order to deepen these topics a bit more…it was really a wonderful and fruitful experience!
Well…that’s all for now folks!

Bye bye