Today I added a story of my own to this website that was about uncertainty – intercultural uncertainty.  I could have written any number of stories on this topic, the one posted is simply the one that comes to mind as a recent example.  I’m a first generation Canadian – my parents and ancestors are British – so you might think moments of intercultural uncertainty don’t happen to me in Canada.

Wrong – and I’m guessing that sentiment cuts right across all the cultural dimensions to be found in this country.  It doesn’t matter whether you have recently arrived in Canada, whether you are Aboriginal, speak French or English as your first language, have lived here five years or all of your life, you’ve had a moment when you’ve encountered some aspect of another culture – or your own – and you found yourself wondering about it.  Perhaps, as I did, you found yourself wondering what you should do.

From the small sample of my own lifelong experience, I know these moments turn into stories that can be illuminating, difficult, humourous, inspiring.   They can seem small in significance – or really large. I am not saying that the experience is the same for all of us – uncertainty feels different, is more daunting, when everything and everyone around you feels unfamiliar.  Still, there is something shared there, something common and I think it’s important to communicate these stories because understanding that we all have moments when we face uncertainty, regardless of cultural background, is a great equalizer.  Sharing what comes out of these moments could be motivation to step into those cultural intersections more often and now we’ll know that chance are – we’re not alone.

Hope I’m not alone after all, and you have a story in this regard you’d like to share – I’d love to hear it and I’m guessing lots of other people would too. Click ntawm no to read the story I posted,

I passed by a bumper sticker in my neighbourhood the other day that made me think about this project – the stories that I’ve been hearing in conversations, and stories that have been coming into the website.

“Don’t believe everything you think.”   Clever.  For me, that simple sentence elegantly separates two thought processes that we so often take as one in the same.  It identifies that smallest split second between when we see or respond to something in a particular way –  and when our cultural norms kick in to confirm for us that it’s the only way to ‘see’ or respond to it.

A couple of stories around events in classrooms particularly come to mind.  In one, I was listening to a group of high-achieving students, growing up as they are in an individualist-oriented culture, venting their frustration with the way a teacher from a more collectivist culture was instructing them.  In the way that only teenagers can, the students were describing behaviour that seemed completely inexplicable to them.  So much so that as I reflected on the conversation, I found myself wondering if at least part of the perceived quality gap arose from two different orientations to learning, clashing in one classroom.  The challenge is that if the teacher and students don’t have a way of seeing that possibility – the stage is set for a lot of mutual misunderstanding and frustration.

So back to the bumper sticker – what if there was a way to freeze that moment in time – before our brains tell us that something is right or wrong, so that we could just register “different” or “unexpected” and explore it together?  That’s also what I hear in some of the stories you’ve shared – the realization of being in precisely that moment and pausing long enough to ask yourself or each other – what about that?

If this post prompts a story for you, I hope you’ll share it!