Blog Post #2 Stop Signs and Football

Wow, I couldn’t be happier with my group. So far we have met twice and both meeting have been productive. To kind of get a juxtaposition I planned heavily for the first meeting in terms of ice breakers and questions, while for the second meeting I planned a lot less. Both meetings went well, however, surprisingly, I found myself talking more during the second meeting.

            I went into the first meeting with a hard set agenda types of conversation activities.  The first activity was an icebreaker in which each member picked three items off their person and then use those items to introduce themselves. Once the activity was completed (about 30 minutes in) I broke the group of 6 into 3 groups of 2. The groups talked for 10 minutes about their varying experiences on campus. Afterwards we came together as a group and had everyone discuss there similarities and differences that they have experienced in the united states. Strikingly one of the things that stood out was the united states use stop signs. Overall the meeting was productive and every member got a chance to practice their conversational skills. The second meeting, however, felt more pushed and prodded.

            At the end of the first meeting my group agreed to focus on the rules and culture of football for meeting #2. Unlike last time I did very little preparation for this meeting. I spent approximately 20 minutes formulating a crude slide show to help guide my thoughts as we discussed football.  After we I went through the slide show I asked the group if they had any questions then to avoid a back and forth between me and the question asker I would ask the question back to the group. After about three questions I could feel the conversation kind of dying so I kept adding to the questions with my own personal experiences to widen the conversation to their experiences. This experience adding polarized the conversation and made it more of a discussion about the differences in culture. As much as that is a fun conversation to continue I feel as though I don’t want to turn this into a culture lesson group. I don’t want this to be a “here’s how it is in America” group. Although the conversations felt natural, I feel like it moves me into a teacher role.

            I thoroughly enjoyed both discussions so far and I’m looking forward to the weeks to come. My only complaint is that the group doesn’t want to move locations from week to week, but it seems the group is getting closer. Hopefully we can take field trips in the future!