Week 3.1 - ICC: Culture and inadvertently cheating (and winning) at cards

The first ICC class gave me a very interesting insight into how to teach culture.

Culture is a funny old thing. The human brain has evolved to have a special ability to really FEEL that something is right and something is wrong. We do it all the time with our opinions and beliefs - even when confronted with evidence that shows our opinion/belief to be false, there's still something in the brain saying "I know now rationally that what I think can't be correct, but... I dunno, still feels right, so I'll stick with it".

Culture has got to be one of the most daily examples of this, especially for us ESL-teachin' types. We just know that lots of class room interaction is the best way to improve, why can't the Koreans feel that it's obviously the best way to do it? I ask a question, somebody volunteers enthusiastically to answer it (enthusiastically, just like when we were at school, right....right??) - how hard can it be?!

The silent card game was a fantastic way of demonstrating that when you've been told something, you feel that it's the right way, and that feeling is strong enough to assume that everyone else is playing by the same rules. "Hey, you stinking cheater, I won that - diamond, my friend, DIAMOND - trumps you, get you're hands off".

Despite having a shared cultural reference (Donald Trump), my drawing of him - admittedly looking like a floppy-haired dandy - didn't quite get the message across.

The most interesting thing of the whole process was that the person with the strongest personality, or who was the most adamant that they were taking the cards, generally got to win the round. Unusually, that was me in these games. With a shrug, the cards were handed over to me, and I continued to effortlessly win each hand due to my super card-sharp skills... And playing by different rules.

So, including the old-woman/young-woman/rabbit/duck picutre activity, I've got a couple of solid brain-detonating culture games for the future. Tucked safely under my rabbit skin belt.

...or is it a duck belt...?