Taking Class in a New Direction

I tried something different in class this week. My lesson focused a bit on English grammar (my students are learning the 'past continuous' tense and modals), but after the first hour, I decided to change gears. I take the Fulbright Program's mission to heart, and I've started to examine what it means to bridge cultural, social, and political gaps between countries. Being in Turkey provides a unique challenge as social and cultural characteristics seem markedly different from those in the United States.

Inspired by a favorite Professor of mine at Wheaton College, I decided to play a word-association game. I simply put the word 'America' on the black-board and asked students to write whatever words came to mind - uncensored, free of judgement. I wanted them to be honest, poignant, and forward. While I've only asked a few classes to participate, many of the same or similar adjectives were noted. I've listed a number of them below:

Exploitation

Crowded

Devil

Honest

Finance

Gorgeous

Independence

Capitalism

Twin Towers

Technology

Obama

CIA

Murder

Shopping

White House

War

Priest

Black people

Hollywood

Racism

Bombing

Freedom

Church

Grand Canyon

Iraq

Tupac

FBI

Sneaking

Artist

Jazz

Poker

Jail

I hope to carry forth this activity through the remainder of the week. So far I've found their responses incredibly compelling, and would be interested to see a side-by-side comparison of words young US university students would associate with Turkey. I decided to chose this activity as a method through which to highlight the pervasive nature of stereotypes, and then to push back against them with more lessons touching upon US lifestyles, politics, etc. Ideally, I hope to strengthen bonds between the cultures by drawing interesting and powerful parallels. It's up to me to figure out exactly how to go about doing that.

More to come on this. Peace.