Module 1: Creating Intercultural Awareness and Understanding Attitudes
Setting the Scene
Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and greater understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history. And when that happens — when people set aside their differences, even for a moment, to work in common effort toward a common goal; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another — then all things are possible.
United States of America (USA) President Barack Obama (Commencement speech, University of Notre Dame, 2016)
Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants. Years of study have convinced me that the real job is not to understand foreign culture, but to understand our own.
Edward T. Hall, Anthropologist
Think about this
- To what degree do the ideas behind these quotes resonate with you?
- Why is it important to learn about differences and to learn from one another?
- Why is it important to understand our own culture?
