EDF2085-Reflection #5

I learned that culture isn’t just where we came from or just our customs. It is what makes us individuals in today’s society. Culture is experiences, laws, customs, and morality all put together. To some experts, such as Lewis Morgan, he saw culture as a pattern that happened over and over. Every culture is valued the same, not one is more important than the other. They are all given the same evaluations. There can be different meanings of culture. It could be a variety of things such as different customs, attitudes, groups, and rituals. As well as things learned and new things formed because of our experience. I also gained insight on culture being something you learn, not something you are born with. I always believed culture could be being Cuban for instance, something you are born into automatically. For example if you are a Jew, you are not born a Jew but you learn and are taught to be one. Culture isn’t something that is individualized; it is something that is shared amongst others. We learn with others’ conflicts, the way they communicate or solve their own problems. Intercultural competence is being able to accept other cultures other than your own. In order to be able to fulfill this you must learn to be nonjudgmental. With all this comes knowing how to communicate correctly with others. It is important to be able to listen to our peers because one word might mean something else to someone else in their culture for instance. The way in which we interpret messages listened or received depends on our culture on how we react towards it. Responding and communicating the message is shaped by our culture. Many words or phrases we use might mean something different to someone else of another culture. I learned every culture has behavioral constraints and emotional constraints which are different ways of reacting when angry, sad, mad, or customs done. For example some other cultures might think we are crazy for crying and screaming when we are mad and frustrated. These constraints affect communication. All theses expressions are different and vary from culture to culture.