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[Teacher at BYU-Idaho giving a lecture in his class.]

Brother Ivers: I believe we talked a little bit in here about dealing with cross-cultural students. I'm going to tell you the story about the cross-cultural student who had shut the person's fingers in the door. Did I ever tell you that? Okay. Well anyway, I want to talk about dealing with cross-cultural students. Students from different cultures in your classroom. You TESOL people will have 100% cross-cultural students in your classroom. You Spanish teachers, in every class, you’ll have one or two students that are not native-born residents of the United States. And so, you will always be dealing with different paradigms and different situations.

Remember in culture we talked about expressivity. And I'm going to mention this again, I know I've mentioned this before. There are many different subcultures in the United States. Some of the subcultures are more expressive than others. The white culture in the United States tends to be less expressive, unless they are from New York City or something. If they are from the Northeastern part of the United States they are kind of expressive, very dynamic and expressive. If they're from Wyoming, they're probably not very expressive. In Wyoming, they'll about as expressive as this:

"Yep. Nope. Yep. Nope."

Anyways [class laughing]. So, see the people from our area—Wyoming, Idaho, Utah—people from our area are not very expressive. But people from New York City and whatnot—Boston, Philadelphia, and New Jersey—can be very expressive. And then when you deal with what we consider as ethnic minorities in the United States, they have their own subculture. In the subcultures in the United States, for example, African Americans have a very expressive subculture. I mentioned this awhile back. In their culture, they have high expressivity tolerance. And they're very expressive, and very often white teachers consider them to be bad students and rude students, when their African American paradigms are informing them that they're not being bad; they’re not being rude. They're acting in accordance with their cultural rules.

So, if you have African American students that are being more active in class than your white students, you have to realize it may not be because they're just bad students. It may be because they’re following their paradigms of being very expressive. And so, keep that in mind in those situations. A lot of white teachers will jump to conclusions about African American students that might not be true.

Now, some other things too with Asian students, for example—although Hispanic students will also be more expressive than white students are generally because their culture has high expressivity tolerance as well. Asian students will tend to be less expressive than white students generally, if they were born in Asia and moved over here to the United States. If they were raised in the United States, they're probably like most Americans would be.

And so, if an Asian student is not very participatory, don't worry about that. Because their culture, they're less expressive. They're taught to be very respectful of the teachers, and sometimes that high degree of respect will limit the comments that they may make in class because they're afraid that they might show that they don’t know something that maybe the teacher didn't teach well enough, or maybe they're questioning the teacher's opinion on something. Questioning what the teacher says would rarely be done in Asia. Disagreeing with a teacher would be rarely done. Some Asian students will go so far as to not even look the teacher in the eyes because that would show disrespect. It just depends on where you are in Asia. Asia is a very big place with many different cultures, it just depends on where they come from in Asia.

Now, another thing too, while we're talking about Asian students: studies have been done where Asian students, who have come here to study in universities, have been shocked at the behavior of American students. American students, by Asian paradigms, are very rude and disrespectful. Asian students who come here the United States to universities here tend to enjoy the educational experience. The studies show that they enjoy the opportunity to be friendly with the teacher, they enjoy the opportunity to debate topics and discuss things openly and that sort of thing, and come to class without much fear that they’ll be criticized. They really enjoy that part. But Asian students, generally, are appalled by what they consider to be American students' lack of respect for the teacher.

Some comments they received by Asian students about us is they say, "What I don't like about American students is that before class ends, they are always packing up their things while the teacher is still talking. It shows shocking disrespect." I agree. [Class laughing.] I don't have that problem in here, but in one of my classes we're ten minutes into class and they're packing up their stuff. It really bugs me.

Another student from Asia said, "In America, the students have all left the room before the teacher is even done talking!" That's a little bit of an exaggeration. But this one class, I'll tell you about: I could be giving my lecture and there's two or three minutes left and people they’re starting to walk out of the room. Theoretically, I could still be there still giving my lecture to an empty room because they've all left. That bugs me, and I'm an American! It irritates me.

There's another student from Asia who said, "Why does the American teachers apologize when arriving late to class when student doesn't have to?" That’s an interesting question. When I come late to class, I say, "I'm sorry about being late to class, so sorry about that." When you guys come late to class, you guys just like wander in. And that's fine, see, I'm just glad you come whether it's late or not [class laughing]. I'm just glad to have you. But see, it's interesting. I bet you it has something to do with our American idea that we're kind of equals and the teacher is really no better than the students, but the teacher is in charge at this time, and you're paying for this, and you deserve, you know, time and that sort of thing. That's a paradigm that might not exist in some other cultures.

Male Student: I heard that on the East Coast, or probably more so in the South, the students need to say, "Yes sir, yes ma'am."

Brother Ivers: Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that, I'm really glad you mentioned that. If you ever have a southern student in your class, in many schools—I went to high school in North Carolina, and when you say “yes” to the teacher, you say, "Yes sir" or "Yes ma'am." When my son was a fourth grader when we moved from North Carolina to Rexburg, Idaho, and he responded to his fourth grade teacher, "Yes sir," he got in trouble for being sarcastic and was sent to the principal’s office.

And so, if you have a southern student saying, “Yes sir” or “Yes ma'am” to you, they're showing you respect. And so, be aware. Whenever a student is from a different place or ethnic group or something does anything weird, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even though you may be interpreting it negatively, it may not be meant negatively. There’s a principle that you need to understand when you go into teaching in the diverse country in which we live.

[Video switches to Brother Ivers lecturing on a different day.]

Brother Ivers: We're going to cover foreign students' impressions of the United States. Remember, one of the cardinal rules of anthropology is that outsiders can sometimes see the real culture better than insiders can. And during some of these interviews that we've had with the foreign students, we've found some things about American culture that make us feel good. Make us feel, that wow, maybe we’re doing something right. And then we've found some things that are somewhat bothersome. They cause us to reflect upon our own culture. And hopefully a lot of that will happen in this class, there’ll be a lot of reflection upon our culture.

[Goes to pass the class roll out to a student.] I'm supposed to start the roll on this side because these guys never get it, but there's hardly anybody here on this side. [Class laughing.] I'll give this to you two guys here. There we go. Then start sending it down this way.

[Resumes lecturing.] Many students that come to the United Students are from Asia, and Asian students, generally, are kind of shocked by American culture. And they are generally highly critical of American social life. And also, especially our lack of family cohesiveness and things like that. But they're really, really impressed with our educational system, which is interesting, which is gratifying. But most Asian students really seem to enjoy the educational experience.

But as far as American culture, they only generally--one study that was done interviewing Asian students and their opinions of what it's like here in the United States said this [reading from study]: “Asian students have positive comments about only two aspects of American life. Only two aspects! How we treat the physically handicapped, and our system of university education.” They admired how we treat the physically handicapped, and they admired our system of university education.

They said, “Regarding the physically handicapped, they were impressed how the disabled are given certain privileges, which gave them courage to do things.” And as far as another thing from this study, it said that “Asian students' most complimentary statements were addressed to the way classes provided students considerable opportunity for asking questions, engaging in critical thinking, and participating in a dialog with the professor. Asian students overwhelmingly favored the classroom organization in the American university.”

Some students from Taiwan were interviewed, and they said, "The main difference between Taiwan's educational system and that of the United States is the relationship between the students and their instructors." According to one student. “The Asian students commented on the opportunity to develop an interpersonal relationship with their professors, and they said ‘that's a unique feature of the American university.’” You can actually go up and talk to your professors. You can visit them in their offices if you like, without being too intimidated.

Now, however, there was something about the Asian students' opinions of American universities that was very, very negative. They were not impressed with the students. They were not impressed with the student. A typical Asian student visiting America—this is the case with many foreign students, by the way—felt that American students were crude and inconsiderate. They felt that American students were crude and inconsiderate.

And here are some of the complaints that they had about American students. See if this applies to you: "American students don't allow the teacher to complete his or her point." That doesn't bother me, that just shows that you're kind of engaged in the lesson. I don't see that as a problem, but people from other cultures might see that as being disrespectful. There are one’s paradigms cause one to interpret reality in different ways.

"American students talk to each other when in class." That doesn't happen in this class very often because you're all too tired! [Class laughing.] But in some of my other classes that's a problem. I've had students that’ll just talk for like 15–20 minutes and the whole class can hear them! As we're doing a group exercise, I'll walk up to them and ask them to be a little more quiet. I won't do like what some professors here do. Brutal public humiliation. It's not in my repertoire. But it is in some professors' repertoires. But anyway. They’re are shocked when some students talk in class. I don't mind students talking in class, as long as nobody else can hear them, and as long as they don't complain about the bad grade they get on the test because they haven't been paying attention. [Class laughing.] If they don’t get a good grade on the test I will remind them of their talking.

Now, another thing or another problem they had is that "American students," and we mentioned this earlier, "will place their feet on the book rack of the desk in front of them." They considered that negative, shocking. "American students will eat in class!" I could care less if you eat in class! It doesn't bother me one bit. But some foreign students, they’re shocked, especially Asians. That one would eat in class.

"Some American students read the newspaper while the teacher is talking." You know, that doesn't happen much anymore. When I started teaching at Ricks College in 1989, it was a big problem. In every one of my classes, students were reading the Scroll. Yeah. That was before the Internet, though, so maybe that was the only information they got, I don't know. They were reading the Scroll. I used to complain about it. I was teaching this one class of return missionaries who weren't reading the Scroll like most of my other classes and I was complaining about all my other classes who were reading the Scroll when I'm teaching! And one day as a joke, one missionary gave some sort of sign, I don't know what it was, and the entire class took out their Scroll and opened them up right in the middle of one of my lessons. [Class laughing.] Can't believe these rude American students! [Class laughing.]

Now, let’s see, another thing, another complaint they have about us. They're shocked when they come to school here and see these things. "Students will just get up and walk out of class without permission!" That's fine with me, I assume there's some reason for it. I assume there's some need behind walking out of class. [Student sneezed] Bless you. I assume that you're not insulted by something I said. If you need to walk out of class, walk out of class. If you're going to school in some foreign culture, you might not want to just walk out of class unless everybody else is doing it, or unless you really have to.

"Students in America will argue over grades." Yeah, that bugs me too. [Class laughing.]

You know, another reason too, as far as why American—there's many reasons that all come into play here—there's probably another big reason for the way American teachers are treated compared to teachers in many other places in the world. Most foreigners consider American teachers to be treated disrespectfully, generally speaking, but I think they're judging it by their paradigms. But why are we treated so "disrespectfully"? What is it in our society that allows that? In your groups, get together and talk about that for a minute.

[Group discussions.]

Professor: What could it be?

Male Student: School is a lot less formal here than it is in other cultures.

Professor: Yeah, we're very very informal here. We very rarely have uniforms and things like that, we're not highly regimented, we do our own thing. That's reflective of another bigger thing, we talked about it before, it begins with an “E.”

Male Student: I think you're looking for egalitarian.

Professor: That's right, that's exactly what I was looking for. But again, everything that you said and everything that everybody else has said has been definitely right on.

All these markers are disappearing in here, I'm really worried about this. This marker is almost to the bottom here, if I use it like this it will work. [Writing on board] E-G-A-L-I-T-A-R-I-A-N-I-S-M. Egalitarianism.

[Student sneezed.]

Bless you.

We live in an egalitarian society, supposedly. Now, is it really egalitarian? It's more egalitarian than some. It's the idea, remember, in our founding documents we have statements such as "all men are created equal." You know, when Thomas Jefferson penned those words, the British kind of made fun of him, you know, because they considered it—in fact one famous British philosopher at the time named Jeremy Bentham said that he felt that the Declaration of Independence was an absurd mumbo jumbo of words, just assuming that all people were equal. And he said, "It's obvious that people are not created equal. And some people are superior to others." That was kind of the British viewpoint at the time, and they thought Jefferson's idea was absurd.

Now, but see, in the United States, we kind of believe that, even though we often don't act that way. We believe that the person who works at Walmart is just as important as the rich person who owns the store. At least they're equal under the law, supposedly. And it's an idea that's very very important in our society and affects us psychologically in so many ways. And in ways that it helps us view the world in an aspect where, you know, we don't see ourselves as much as inferiors or superiors as possibly some other cultural groups.

[End]