Cultural Exercises

These are the cultural exercises we were required to consider prior to the trip.  I found both the readings and the exercises quite challenging - not in the difficulty sense, but in the sense of confronting your own views and culture.

The chapter that the exercises were taken from is : What is Culture? from  "Culture and Education" which is now on my list of books to read.

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Exercise 1.1 – You are what you buy.

In a table like the one below, list 10 items that you see as essential to your day-to-day life. Then, for each item, provide the reasons why you bought it and list the effects (as many as you can think of) it has on your identity.

Item	Purpose for buying	How does this shape who you are?
Mobile phone	Communicating – I need it to talk to my friends – they all have one	I’m part of the group and not left out. I’ve got the latest ringtones so I’m pretty up-to-date.

Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 3).

Exercise 1.6 – Evaluating Values

Make a table like the one below and list all the values you think you hold. These might be ethical values, but they also might be ‘things’, such as family or education. Then list where you think you go them from and you you engage in these values on a day-to-day level.

Values	Where you go this from	How you ‘practise’ it
Freedom
Authority
Justice
Equality
Education	Your parents	Go to university

Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 10).

Exercise 1.7 – My Family Culture

In a table like the one below, insert elements from your own family’s activities to get a sense of the culture of your family.

Elements of Culture	My family’s examples
Symbols and signs	My dad wearing a kilt to Sunday lunches at Grandma’s house.
Language
Values
Beliefs
Norms
Rituals	Sunday lunch with Grandma; attendance at school 5 days a week, for around 12 years
Material objects

Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 12).

Exercise 1.10 – The ‘Who am I?’ test

Write down here the first 20 statements you think of about what makes you the person you are. You might want to think about how the context of doing this exercise is shaping your choice of identity markers about yourself.

Who am I? Statements about what makes me, me.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 14).

International Experience Portfolio Background

 International Experience Portfolio

As part of your participation in an international experience program through CSU, you will need to maintain an International Experience Portfolio that includes reflections, actions, photos, images, thoughts, critical incident logs, and so on. The portfolio is NOT A DIARY of events, but rather a critical record of your experiences, thoughts, critical incidents, reflections, and so on. The International Experience Portfolio can be prepared in various ways, e.g. in a book, in a word-processed document, in a PowerPoint, as digital media (e.g. a blog), or however you work best. Keep in mind that not all international experiences will have Internet connections or stable electricity supplies, so if you are planning to do it on a laptop, then you might wish to consider bringing a backup book or place to write your entries.

Pre-departure Activities

Activity 1

Thinking back over the past week or month, consider your experiences and identify an experience that made you have unusually strong feelings or reactions. Try to keep your focus on an incident related to your studies or professional life rather than personal experiences. However, if you can't think of a critical incident from your studies or professional life, it is okay to choose one from your personal life.

Once you have identified a critical incident, take five or ten minutes to write it down and describe it in as much detail as you can remember. Remember to include the who, when, where, what, and how of the incident. (Don't do the "why" at this point - we'll get to that later!)

Activity 2

Using the critical incident that you identified and described above, work through the critical incident analysis process and develop an entry for a critical incident log that demonstrates your process of examining your experience. As you work through this process, consider how it feels to work through the process and take note of how long it can take as well.

Activity 3

Quick response ? write down all the words you can think of that answer the question ?What is culture?? You could do this as a mind map or just a list ? up to you.

Activity 4

Write down some of your ideas about how you might live in and understand a community that has knowledge and ways of knowing different to your own. Now, consider the international experience that you are going to participate in: what differences might you find there and how might you work with these?

Activity 5

Read McIntosh's article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. As you read through, keep your upcoming international experience in mind and what factors might affect what you understand and how you see incidents in your experience.

After you have read the article, respond to the following questions that are designed to guide your reading and encourage you to reflect more deeply on some of the concepts in the article.

• How do you describe your nationality, ethnicity and race. What do you think are the differences between these descriptors?

• How many of the items on the checklist (pp. 10-11) can you relate to? Choose three of them and reflect on how the point is relevant to you and why. Give an example to illustrate your thinking.

• On page 11, McIntosh talks about white privilege really being about white dominance. How does the education system in Australia inadvertently or inexplicitly teach us to exercise white privilege or dominance over others. Think specifically about what is taken for granted or the ‘hidden’ aspects of curriculum, or policy or teaching practice.

• What might be in your cultural knapsack when you go on your international experience later this year?

• develop your cultural self-awareness,

• develop your cultural knowledge of the international context you are visiting, and

• develop your interaction skills.

Record your responses to these questions in your International Experience Log so that you can come back to them after you have finished your international experience.

Task

Identify and complete at least one thing that you could do for each of the following: 

• develop your cultural self-awareness,
• develop your cultural knowledge of the international context you are visiting, and
• develop your interaction skills.

You might like to keep a track of these in your International Experience Portfolio as part of your predeparture activities.

Singapore Study Visit - Overview

SINGAPORE STUDY VISIT PROGRAM 2013

2nd - 5th September 2013

Leader: Judy O'Connell

Monday 2 September:
Tanglin Trust School
Ngee Ann Polytechnic Lien Ying Chow Library
Singapore Polytechnic Library

Tuesday 3 September:
SingaporeManagement University
National Library Board Building Singapore
National Library Board @ Chinatown

Wednesday 4th September:
Temasek Polytechnic
United World College of SE Asia - East
NLB Supply Centre
Singapore Press Holdings

Thursday 5th September:

Nanyang Technological University
Institute of SouthEast Asian Studies

Study Visit Checklist

Study Visit Checklist for Students 

Goals and users 

• What are the purposes for which the library exists? 

• What is the nature of the community/organisation served? 

• What are the information needs of that community/organisation? 

• What role does the community/organisation play in determining, directing and contributing to the library’s services? 

The collection 

• What is the focus of the collection? What subject areas does it cover? 

• Is there a collection development policy? 

• What media are held, e.g. print, audio visual, CD-ROM, online? 

• Which are the predominant media and why? 

• Has information technology brought about major changes in the way in which information is stored and disseminated? 

• How are materials selected? 

• Is the collection weeded? For what purpose? 

• What strategies are in place to ensure the physical preservation of the collection (including electronic sources)? 

Staff 

• What professional, technical and support staff does the library have? What roles do they play in fulfilling the purposes of the library? 

• What professional development is provided for, or expected of, staff? 

• What flexibility is allowed in staffing to better meet the needs of staff and users? 

Reference services 

• What reference services are provided for users? How are these services provided? 

• What user education is provided? 

• What use is made of the Internet in reference work?

Network infrastructure 

• Which integrated library management system is used? Why is this system in use? 

• What electronic networks operate between the library and its user group? 

• To what extent does the library depend on network access and availability? 

• Does the library provide information and services through a web page or pages to users? What information and services are provided? Has this access significantly extended its user group? 

• Does the library have an information technology plan? 

Technical services 

• What is the perceived function of the catalogue? 

• What standards and services are employed in cataloguing? 

• What access is provided to materials which are not catalogued? 

• Does the library develop and maintain any indexes, classification schemes or subject heading lists of its own? 

• Are metadata standards being used in the cataloguing of online resources? 

Budget 

• What are the library’s sources of funding? 

• What is the level of funding (if not confidential)? 

• How are these funds committed? 

• To what extent do users pay directly for services which they use? 

Promotion 

• How does the library promote and market its services to its potential users? 

Physical environment 

• How suitable are the library’s location, accessibility, size, layout and physical facilities to the fulfilling of its purposes?