New journey starts: the metacognitive cultural humility quest

Blog post 1
June 17, 2011


Here I am in a kind of study abroad ready to do a little experiential learning.  Page and I are talking about critical thinking blogging to increase cultural awareness, and we are in the process of trying to adapt the concept of cultural humility to the foreign language classroom.  Sipple  and I are working on applying Bakhtin's concept of carnival to the experience of study abroad. So, here I am putting on my metaphorical white lab coat, splitting myself into metacognitive observer and immersed participant, and taking notes.  This is armchair theorizing on wheels, ethnography through the looking glass, the practical application of critical navel gazing, as it were.

First, blogging as metacognitive practice.  If I'm not careful, this blog could turn into a travelogue where I just chronicle what happens in a kind of boring reportage.  I need to remember to observe/describe, analyze, evaluate, and extrapolate.  At this point in the journey, I am two thirds along in my journey as I wait in Heathrow for my flight to Vienna.  In getting from Cincinnati FTP Heathrow via Toronto, I noticed two things: there is a lot of personal stress for travelers trying to make The Rules of the airport make sense, and it is tiring to make connections work.  

Airports now have all kinds of crazy rules that don't always make sense like the liquids in the plastic bag, going through all the different kinds of security procedures, and what documents one must give to whom and when.  It is rather the opposite of carnival: it reminds me of a Kafkaesque world where officials needing something just turn up and block you from your task until some line has been walked through.  In Toronto, we had to get off the plane, go through a passport and Landing Card check even though we were only making a connection inside the airport to another Air Canada flight.  (note to self: never do that again!). I asked apparently official  two people why we had to do this, and they both looked off into space and muttered vagaries: it was The Rules.  I think that the stress is increased by the apparent arbitrariness of The Rules and consequent feeling of lack of control or being at the mercy of mysterious forces.  The most constructive response, I think, is to just let go of control and treat airports and their ilk as seas with high chop: a mild force of nature that you can't push against but which can be maneuvered and accounted for in other ways.  

The other observation was about how tiring this is.  Hurry up and wait is stressful, and it is really  hard to sleep well on a plane.  As a result, I think that on our study abroad trip, we need to have a snack provision time because I went up to Costa Coffee, and that cup of coffee worked wonders.  If we go directly to Prague from Cincinnati, or Vienna, we'll need to make sure we have plenty of rest time planned in, and we need to make sure that the kids have snacks or, more likely, time to get snacks.  

I think that giving oneself to the carnivalesque world of international travel is tightly related to the practice of cultural humility because both require letting go of control and being more responsive than proactive.  One can plan and plan, but once in motion, one can only use the plan as a general guideline.  The customs man at the UK Border Control asked me a series of border questions ending with "What kind of professor are you?" Would there have been a wrong answer? Was he waiting for a hesitation in case I wasn't what I had written for my profession on my landing card?  I blurted out "Comparative literature" because it sounded less silly than "English".  He was fine with that, but I reflected on the cultural humility "courageous questions" as I hiked on to the next terminal to see if I had dealt with that moment in the way that we recommend in our paper.  
      What are my biases about this group of people?  
                I believe that border authority people are capricious.
      How do I know these biases are true or not?
                 I have passed through customs in many countries and been confused            by them often.
       What will happen if I act on these biases?
                 I don't know because border authority people confuse me.
        What kind of relationship do I want to have with this person?
                 I know I am harmless so I want to give him answers that will make him happy.
         
I guess I was humble enough.  I answered his questions, and when i was confused, I just went with whatever came to mind.  It seemed to work well enough. I think the challenge in cultural humility will really come into play when I am weaker with the language skills, like in Austria and the Czech Republic.  What is my plan, a la self regulated learning?  I will plan ahead what I need to say, use that plan as a guideline, when I get confused I will slow down and try to politely work though the interaction with writing or graphic aids.  Okay. The next step in my participation in this carnival of humility will begin in two hours when I have to find the S7 train to Praterstern and buy a ticket for it.  Heh heh.   We'll see how this best laid plan of this mouse goes.  

*****
Ha! It was so easy to get to the hotel from the airport thanks to the fabulous public transport and a little research.  At the hotel desk, Page will laugh, I didn't have to use my fancy sentences asking the clerk to speak English because all of my night school German worked just fine.  Of course the clerk was kind and patient, so that was good.  What new understanding do I have? Go in with a plan and wing it.  

This part of the outer ring of Vienna is the work-a-day business use end of the city.  At Pratersterne u-bahn and s-bahn station, everybody gathers to sit around, smoke cigarettes, drink  whatever, and have their dogs bark at each other amidst the trash.  It is quite scruffy, and not quite what I expected, although I'm not sure what I expected.  I certainly did not expect to see 19th century buildings with graffiti tags on them.  But the coolest thing so far is the never ending bike parade in the congested bike lane: a bike with a trailer full of full sized speaker cranking out industrial synth, a recumbent bike with the driver on the cell phone so he steers with one foot and peels with the other whilst on the phone, baskets of all sizes, roller blazers with bicycle bells in their hands to get the slow bikes out of the way, pirate flags, stuffed rabbits, and tigger ente painted bikes.  That was fun to see.