Blog 5- Post Service

1.  A major theme that has shown throughout my experience with the Burmese family involves Knapp’s Relational Model.    Our interpersonal relationship with the family has progressed through the stages of this model.  We began in the coming together phase.  In this stage, we went from strangers to acquaintances.  At first we were all a bit apprehensive and guarded.  Slowly, however, we grew much more comfortable with the family.  We began bonding as we started seeing each other more and holding conversations.  The children really began to warm up to us and always begged for our attention during our visits. Our relational maintenance was going strong even through our last days with the family.  The children would cry when it was time for us to leave.  It was very touching that they enjoyed our presence so much. We did not grow apart, but we had to come to an abrupt termination as we said our final goodbyes to the family.  The mother’s growing of knowledge was a theme that greatly contributed to our strong interpersonal relationship with the family.    She began understanding and interpreting connotative meanings of English sayings and phrases.  We were able to make jokes and talk about aspects of our cultures.  I am pleased to think that I made an impact on the family and helped them adjust to American Culture. 

2.   Working with a family from Burma influenced my perspective on culture more than any class lecture would possibly be able to.  I’m so glad I had that experience because it really opened my eyes to diversity and intercultural communication.   I am more culturally sensitive now that I have had interpersonal interactions with people of a completely different culture.  This will help me in future interactions in my career and everyday life.  I will have a better understanding of how to communicate with people that speak other languages.  I can be more sympathetic to people that accustom to our culture or norms.  I am so glad that I got the opportunity to learn and help others through this service project experience!

Blog 4- During Service

1.  Our family from Burma has began to feel much more comfortable with us being around. They act more natural as opposed to being formal to impress us. As time has progressed, I have noticed the mother of our Burmese family become more assertive in her parenting style.  She began to raise her voice and make harsh gestures at the children when they disrespected her. The mother has been improving greatly with her reading skills.  She is finally beginning to understand and interpret what she is reading, rather than simply saying unfamiliar words.  We have began making conversation with her more now that she understands us better.  however, there are many times where miscommunication occurs and we must use descriptions, gestures or drawings to communicate.

2.  Our family has become much more comfortable with us as we become more familiar.  They have welcomed us into their home as if we are a part of their family rather than part of an out-group.  It seems that they are experiencing less culture shock as they begin to understand our language better.  The family follows a high power distance lifestyle. Elders are always respected.  When children disrespect their elders there are harsh consequences.  The mother of our family yells at her children and makes hand gestures to them in attempt to save and maintain her authority face. Her hand gestures are a form on nonverbal communication to signal to the children that she is very mad and they need to calm down.  We use nonverbal communication a lot with the family.  Sometimes there is no direct translation for a word we are trying to use.  In this case we will use actions, drawings or the internet to depict the message we are trying to convey. As the mother learns, she is understanding connotative meanings and interpreting words and sentences for herself.  Instead of simply reading, she is reading and comprehending.  We learned that by repeating the same story or book several times, she picks up on the meaning of the story.  We enjoy talking about the stories we read and making conversation. It is important to do this with the family so that they can feel more confident out in the real world when they do things such as shopping or going to the doctor.

3.  In our final visit with the family, we are going to give them tips for living in America.  We want them to feel comfortable here and adapt to our language and culture.  We are going to incorporate the children into the activity or conversation so they will not feel excluded, and so the mother will not have to discipline them. We will continue reading with the mother for comprehension skills.  We want to encourage her to continue reading English books to her children.  The children are still very young, so we would like for them to be integrated into the American culture while still maintaining their cultural roots from Burma.  It will be important for the entire family to understand English as the children grow and enter school.

Blog 3- During Service

1.  The technology in the home of our Burmese family is scarce. Between the four family members, there is one cell phone and one landline.  They also have an iPad that the father uses for his job.  This is more than enough technology in their opinion.  While teaching and conversing with the mother about food, we found out that she has never even used an oven.  This gave us the idea to teach her how to bake a cake during our next visit.  I bought cake mix and the ingredients to go along with it.  I even bought a disposable 9"x13" pan to bake the cake in.  However, the baking process did not go as smoothly as I anticipated.  The oven took over a half hour to preheat because it hadn't been turned on in a few years.  I did not even think to bring measuring cups or a mixing bowl.  It was hard to ask the Burmese mother if she had those things.  I had to explain what a measuring cup was because she has never actually used one.  Luckily, the family is very close with their neighbors and we were able to borrow measuring tools and a big mixing bowl.  In the end, our hard work and confusion resulted in a delicious cake for our Burmese family to enjoy.

2. Technology is highly valued in America.  It is our ethnocentric belief that all people should have many sources of technology such as cell phones, computers, televisions, etc... Our Burmese family did not value technology as highly as most Americans.  They only needed two phones in order or contact each other if something happened at home while the father was at work.  They hardly knew how to use their iPad because it was so technologically advanced for them.  They did not care to use it very much.  The mother was excited to bake with the oven though.  When we ran into conflict, we had to find ways to resolve it using interpersonal communication.  When coming up with the idea to bake a cake, I used very low future orientation.  It was an "in the moment" decision. Since I forgot a few key tools to baking a cake, we had to use descriptive words to explain to the mother what we needed.  She did not have the vocabulary equivalence of a measuring cup because that was never a word she needed to know in her native language.  Luckily, she lives in a collectivistic community and her neighbors were happy to lend her some bowls and measuring cups.

3.  Baking a cake was a great experience for the family.  However, in the future we need to plan more before doing such complex activities.  The mother enjoyed learning how to cook rather than the typical reading, writing and math that we normally do.  In the future I will incorporate more activities related to American culture while I teach the family.  We could start using their iPad to get apps that teach vocabulary, math, and writing skills. That way they can make use if their iPad and learn English at the same time.  We will try to make leaning English more enjoyable for our family.  

Blog 2- During Service

1.  When we first arrived at the Ko family's home, I was a bit taken back.  It was a very small home with no chairs, couches, TV or computer.  Walking up to the door, we noticed that all of their shoes were outside on the porch.  I felt very odd taking my shoes off outside, but I did it as a sign of respect.  When we got inside the house, the mother offered us to sit on the floor next to her.  She made sure to give us a pillow to sit on for comfort.  The language barrier was a huge struggle, but communication was not as challenging as I expected.  We learned that the mother is very smart. She had good math skills such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication.  She learned the alphabet and how to spell her name and address.  She has two children, ages one and two.  They were very energetic and their mother yelled at them in their native language when they misbehaved.

2.  The Burmese family that we teach has very different cultural norms and practices than what I am used to.  I have never taken my shoes off outside before, but for them it was a very common practice.  It is also a social norm to sit on the ground in their culture.  At first I just assumed that they did not have the money to buy a couch or chairs.  However, when I learned more about their culture and background, I realized that they were most comfortable sitting and eating on the ground, rather than at a table.   Being a culturally ignorant American, I first perceived the family as unintelligent because they did not speak English.  However, when we began math skills, my perception of the refugee family completely changed.  The mother was very smart and could do complicated multiplication in her head faster than I could.  Even though she did not speak English very well, she found many ways to communicate with me.  She used hand motions and pointing at objects to explain herself.  When she first started yelling at her kids in Burmese, I was a bit startled.  However, I realize now that their culture is very strict.  Elders are much more respected in Asian cultures.  Burmese parents must maintain a strong control face in order to gain respect from their young children.

3.  I learned that the Burmese mother is much smarter than I expected.  In the future I will be able to bring more challenging lesson plans and books for her to read.   Since she knows basic math skills, we will move on to more complex math and money counting skills.  I have learned to be more culturally sensitive and flexible for future interactions with them.  I have realized that they do some things much differently than us which is not necessarily wrong or bad.  Diana and I learned that it is much more difficult for the mother to learn when her kids are a distraction.  We have made an agreement that when we go to their home, one of us will teach the mother while the other keeps the children occupied.  We switch off each week.  With careful planning and openness to culture, we will make the most of our future experiences with the family.

Blog 1- Pre Service

1.  While working with World Relief, I hope to learn a lot about the culture of the family we are helping.  I am excited to hear and learn more about their native language.  It will be interesting to observe their daily routines and rituals, and compare them to how I live.  I am curious to know if their parenting styles are similar to those of American parents.

2.  I do not really know what to expect from my service-learning site.  The small town that i grew up in was not very culturally diverse.  I have never been exposed to the lifestyles of people from such different cultures.  We are going to the home of a refugee family in Rock Island.  I assume that the language barrier will be a problem, especially when we first meet our family.  Since they are refugees that just moved here, they will probably not have the best living conditions.  They will probably need to learn about technology and American currency/consumerism.

3.  World Relief works very hard to adapt refugees from all over the world to American culture.  They provide them with a temporary home and help them find jobs.  They try to educate them about our culture and language.  I will be volunteering with one specific family. I will help them learn about America and I will become a friend/advocate for them.

4.  World relief helps with refugees from all over the world. They rescue people from refugee camps in places such as Africa and Asia, and bring them to America.  I do not know where my service-learning family is from.  The only information I have is that I will be working with the Ko lat KO family. They are a young family of four. The father speaks a little bit of English. The mother does not speak any English.  They have two children, ages one and two.

5.  I am very excited to begin working with the world relief family.  I do not have any previous connections with world relief or even people of such different cultures.  I have a passion for helping others and learning new things.  It will be interesting to connect with a family from across the world.

Service & Learning

Serving others will always lead to learning. Whether it's working in a soup kitchen, or simply helping a friend with homework, the result will be a learning experience for everyone. You can learn a lot just by helping someone from a different cultural, racial, economic or social background.  Seeing how other people live can be very humbling.  For the Urban Plunge, I was assigned to go to a homeless shelter for women and children.  I learned a lot about the women there, the volunteers, and even myself.  It made me appreciate what I have and what I take for granted every day.

For our service project, we will be working with refugees from countries of Africa and Asia.  I am very excited for the experience because I have never worked with people from such different cultures.  I hope to gain knowledge of their culture, and learn more about the refugee camps.  I also hope to provide them with academic knowledge, and knowledge of our American culture.