What is Culture?
We are a part of collective, born and brought up, and there is a collective consciousness that we carry. This is what distinguishes us from other collective consciousness. Hence, we can say that culture is a collective programming of our minds. This is what distinguishes one group from the other.
It comes up for battles very often in India, as we have as much diversity in a single country as there is in the world. There are places in India where I am asked if I am a foreigner! In the school I worked in, in southern part of India, it came up often for I am from the north of India. It came up in food, in accent, in dressing sense and most of all, in the way of relating to each other. This is The Valley school, Bangalore.
Even though I am from north, the culture I comes from, respect is the core value for us to practice. In the school I was, relationship was the core value in the culture to be practiced. Hence there was some resonance between us for relationship without respect is not possible.
“If it were possible to define generally the mission of education, one could say that its fundamental purpose is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allows them to participate fully in public, community and economic life”, (Huddart, 2014, pp.2). For The Valley school, learning to relate was the mission of education. Relationship was the base from which all work was done. For teachers, students, leaders and support staff. For the school creators believed that relationship is life or learning to relate is learning to live.
Its implication was felt in all dimensions.
· In order to relate to the colleagues, a diverse group from different states and some from other countries, we needed to learn to listen to each other.
· Our staff meetings were held in a round space to convey equality to all.
· The school is in a forest, ensuring a sensitive relationship to the nature. The forest guards were respected and their rules followed.
· The students were respected as people with their own identity. Each student teacher conflict was encouraged to be resolved through relationship building.
· The support staff was treated respectfully. We washed our own dishes after meals and the support staff had full right to send us back to rewash them if they were not satisfied.
· Students were not pushed for best grades but to identify the best capacities and helped to chalk out a career for themselves. For example, some students who were very poor in maths were encouraged to drop it and move to environmental sciences. Some of them found their vocation in it and are doing deep work in it today.
· We used English as the basic language to be used as India is has not found one language that the whole country agrees upon as yet. I learnt some basic sentences of the south to communicate with support staff members that did not speak in English, but refrained from using north Indian languages in public spaces.
· We had a special educator whose chief role was to educate us for the needs to the SEN students.
· The morning assembly had the whole school sit together and sing songs of various languages from India, including Sanskrit chants and gospel music.
In conclusion I would say that the school was not perfect. There were times we felt that it took the scope of relationships too far, however having that as a base culture helped us relate to each other better and work and live together as a community.
“Relationships are powerful. Our one-to-one connections with each other are the foundation for change. And building relationships with people from different cultures, often many different cultures, is key in building diverse communities that are powerful enough to achieve significant goals”, (Axner, n.d, para. 1)
References
1. Axner, M. (n.d.). Building Relationships with People from Different Cultures. Retrieved from https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/building-relationships/main
2. Huddart, D. (2014). English in the Conversation of Mankind: World Englishes and Global Citizenship. In Involuntary Associations: Postcolonial Studies and World Englishes (pp. 52-74). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18kr776.6
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