Note-taking shock

Note-Taking Shock

• Unexpected gem I dug out in the classroom yesterday: the concept of cultural shock.
  • Usually, we associate this idea with encountering other cultures and traditions, like eating insects, or the topics of the LGBT agenda or homosexual education, just to pick from some recent trends. However, this phenomenon is not so simple.
  • I always thought that shock happens when we move to another country. This thought lies on the surface and is easy to reach, or shock might occur when we are thrust into a new environment.
    • A country could be considered an environment, as well as a shift from school to university, starting a new job after finishing the previous one, living with a spouse after living all your life alone, or having a baby for the first time.
  • It eventually wears off, in the same way as jet lag does, but it’s not as simple as that.
    • For some people, it goes away in months; for others, in years; but for some, it never does.
  • In short, cultural shock cannot be attributed only to changing location but to the general change in the order of things that we are used to, and the process of adaptation is called acculturation.
  • Acculturation has four stages to itself.
    • Everything starts with elation (Honeymoon), when new things give energy and the initial push to do whatever we’ve planned.
      • Characteristics: excitement and fascination with notes, reading everything else. Eagerness to explore further.
      • Duration: from several days to several moths. Individual is more open to changes and challenges.
    • After that, resistance (Hostility) comes. At this stage, we start doubting whatever we are doing. The majority of people who go through cultural shock break at this stage, like dropping out of university, forgetting that they are tracking habits, writing notes, or reading with some kind of regularity.
      • In general, they experience a great sense of frustration and loss.
      • Characteristics: start seeing difficulties and real challenges, a sense of frustration and anxiety grows, sometime followed with anger. Usually, it happens but the feelings of loss.
      • Common challenges: new norms, activities and behaviour.
    • Resistance is followed by transformation, another extreme of cultural shock. At this stage, everything seems alien, especially everything that we used to think of as normal.
      • When emigrating, for example, a person cuts off roots, which leads to unhappiness.
      • When we start taking notes and begin transforming, we think that everyone else is doing it wrong, where there is no right or wrong, only what works for you personally and what does not.
      • Characteristics: shift in perspective, development of strategies to cope, balanced view on positives and negatives.
      • Signs of transformation: adaptation to new practices, gaining proficiency, finding comfort in what you do.
    • And in the end, there is integration, an appreciation of everything, old and new, strange and mundane.
      • Characteristics: achievement of a sense of belonging, feeling of ease with new practices, and appreciation of the old and the new.
      • Outcomes: hybrid identity, a balanced mix of the old and the new.

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BIO

theBrain mapping

Source:: Friend:: Child:: 2000 The initial shock of note-taking Next:: Notes are a brain trainer, Crossing the threshold of frustration barrier

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