Xenophile

(During the summer months, I like to take the A-Z Challenge and come up with words alphabetically and see how they apply to education. I think it’s a great exercise for teachers and students to give this a try.)

A xenophile is a person who is attracted to foreign peoples, manners, or cultures.

I need to teach my students to be xenophiles.

I want them to learn about foreign cultures so they can understand differences without being afraid of these differences

I feel racism occurs because people are ignorant of these differences and are afraid when they are around people who are different.

Instead, we need to embrace these differences.

My husband and I love to go on cruises because we go to different countries. When we visit different countries, we like to visit their local grocery store and we can learn a lot about the culture from this store. We can see what kinds of food they eat as well as the different values of certain foods. We can tell if electricity and freezers are normal or a luxury. There are certain types of food that may be unusual to us and I like to ask people how they cook it.

Many cruises have crew and staff from many different countries. I like to talk to them about their life in their home country and information about their families. It is very interesting to hear how they had to adapt to life on a ship and how they deal with their cultural traditions aboard a ship.

I ask students if they are willing to share their family’s background and sometimes a parent or grandparent is willing to come to talk to the class. I make sure that my students are respectful when we have a visitor. Sometimes we plan our questions before the visitor comes so we can be prepared to ask appropriate questions. If I don’t do this, sometimes my students get too shy and are afraid of asking a “dumb” question.

How do you help your students learn about foreign cultures? Please share.

Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash