There are severall tools we can use to become open minded, first of all it is important to talk to people of different cultures, but also to people from your own culture. This opens up your horizont and helps you to avoid prejudices. In school our university the so called "string method" could be useful to become open minded. We tried it in class and it worked out quite well. Everybody has to write down one word that comes into his mind when you think about a situation you´ve had a most significant culture shock either in a positive or negative way. For example our arrival to Denmark or other countries. I chosed the word "bike" because it really suprised me positively how well the city is organised to use your bike. You are able to ride it everywhere in the city you like, they have special bike paths and you don´t get in contact with cars so easily. I really like that, because I like to ride bike. I do it in Germany as well, but here it is even more pleasant especially in the city. If you compare it to Berlin it is a lot more dangerous to ride your bike there.
Another situation came into my mind when we talked about culture shock. I´ve been an exchange stuent in America when I was 17. Arriving there was really shocking for me, I couldn´t understand the language quite well and was shocked by how they used their cars to go everywhere, how they always eat fast food and are so stressed out. I enjoyed my stay there but I couldn´t live there forever. I improved soon and got used to the life there and even liked it, knowing it was just a period of time and not forever.
Another culture shock that came into my mind was when I went to Georgia (Georgien) last summer, there I was very shocked about the poorness and the women wearing long skirts and scarfs. Everywhere garbage was laying around and it took me a while to get used to the hot weather and the friendliness and openess of the people. We could hardly talk to anyone without being invited for dinner, it was a present for them if we said yes and stayed and it really made them happy and us as well. We had some nice experiences getting to know the Georgien food and the welcomeness of the people.
To develop a common language in a multicultural setting you have to have discussions with the people and do exercises. It is good to introduce students to others from different countries to help them become more open minded, this also refers to the last time we had the Globalisation course and talked about different portals like "e-Twinning" you could use to get closer to other countries with your school class. As a teacher you could go abroad and take pictures that led to discussions, then you could come up with questions about certain situations shown on the pictures. This would help to gain the students attention and lead to discussions about different cultures.
The "home comming" after a certain time being abroad is mostly the hardest part of the whole stay. You are so excited to go home and you have your expectations about what it will be like to be home again. In most times you will be disappointed to experience that people are not interessted and can´t understand what you experienced. When I came back after 10 month living in America I had real problems to get used to my life in Germany again.
Furthermore I´d like to mention the accomodation learning strategie which takes place when you have to change excisting schematas in your head and reorganise them new. Therefore it is also called "transcendent learning". In contrast assimilation is the adaption of new impressions and creating schematas in your head. There are different types of stereotypes as prejudice, disgust and chauvinism you have to be aware of as different reactions to culture shock, and use them when you want to make your students become more open minded. Here again the string method could be used to talk about these culture shocks and to make your students become more open minded and avoid these prejudices. It also avoids the creation of stereotypes in the students mind.
In the end I´d like to mention certain reading and links which were provided for us:
Illeris, Knud(2004): The three dimensions of learning. Contemporary theory in the tension field between the cognitive, the emotional and the social Roskilde University Press & Nice publications. Narayana Press
Lynch, Eleanor W and Marci J. Hanson (1998), (Ed.): Developing Cross-Cultural Competence. Paul H. Brookes Publising, Baltimore, Maryland.
University of Copenhagen provide a definition of culture shock here: http://studies.ku.dk/health_and_safety/culture_shock/
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