A Simple Lesson on Cultural Differences

I ASSUME MOST SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS have had a similar experience to mine. That is, there was always a tendency among students to mock or misunderstand cultures different from their own.

(I solved the problem by retiring. Ha, ha, teacher humor.)

Seriously, we used to do an interesting lesson on naming practices, names being fundamental across cultures. My students thought a Native American name like “Big Knife” sounded stupid. They saw no problem with the last name “Cleaver.” If you pointed out names like “Maple,” and “Rivers” and “Adler” (German for “eagle”) and compared them with Native American names you could get a good discussion going.

I found, for example, that students named “Bradford” often didn’t realize what the “ford” in their name signified or understand how, in some century past an ancestor named Brad lived by a ford in the river. We had girls with the last name “Mason” who didn’t realize what a mason did and boys named “Kroft” who had no idea one of their ancestors had to have been a farmer.

You could easily rile up the ladies in class by noting that many cultures had names that indicated “son of,” from O’Reilly to Denisovich to bin Talal, respectively, son of Reilly, son of Denis, son of Talal.

Other examples abound: “mac” and “sen,” “sohn” and “owski.”

As far as I know, there are no cultures with naming practices to indicate “daughter of.”

(By the way, if you ever want to get the attention of the young ladies in your class, explain why ships are referred to as “she,” as in “The Titanic hit the iceberg and at 2 a.m. she went to the bottom...”

THERE WAS AN EVEN more pronounced tendency among my students to mock cultural differences—or at least to fail to understand them.

I used to show students a picture of some Native American culture which shaped heads in what would seem (even to me) in odd ways. Could my students think of any comparable oddities in America today?

We tended to get the same kind of answers every year; but one day, Stefanie put up her hand to answer, thought it over, and lowered her hand again. I tried not to let students sit and not contribute to discussion. So I prodded her to say what she had on her mind. She relented. “Mr. Viall, we think their customs were stupid, but women in America today pay thousands of dollars for boob jobs.”

As you might imagine, my class of seventh graders exploded in laughter and I laughed heartily myself.

“That’s why I like having you in class, Stefanie,” I said. “You always know how to think.”

I retired a decade ago; but if I were still teaching today, and doing that same lesson, I might use the following example.

The New York Times reported not long ago about a new style that was coming into play. It was called the “Elfie.” 

I think I’ll run out and get the procedure today.

I have a few other ideas you might be able to use if you care to check out my blog.