No real excuse for the long absence from our blog... and I'm not giving up on it just yet!
The sun has come out again this month and I'm thrilled! I've been working from home on the big project I'm involved in, and so I sit in our living room with the light streaming in. So great!
Usually just about the time I'm ready for a break and a cup of tea mid morning, the kids are out on the Spielplatz (playground) for recess. It's seriously the best entertainment. I have to say though, I have a great deal of compassion for any German child who has had to move to the US and adapt to school there and vice versa. Playground rules are NOT the same. There is a very different level of acceptable aggression when playing. The kids on the Spielplatz hit, kick, shove, drag, spit...all while everyone is laughing and smiling. If someone actually gets hurt, whoever made the painful blow usually stops, checks out the injury, puts their arm around the other kid and they walk off friends. I actually saw a kid truly getting "picked on" the other day. A smaller boy was standing, backed up to the wall by two other boys. Suddenly, the biggest kid in the class comes running up, chews the two boys out and pulls the small boy away from the wall. The really funny moment was watching the small boy walk away taunting the two boys as he went, figuring he was safe now. Kind of made me speculate as to how he'd gotten himself in trouble with the two boys in the first place....
So I'm guessing a German child who moves to the US runs the risk of getting suspended and being completely baffled as to why. And an American child who lands in the middle of a German playground walks away convinced that "they're all mean" and "don't like me." We've drilled into American children, "Use your words, not your hands." "It's not nice to hit/kick/spit/shove." How do you un-learn what that kind of behavior means?
Really, its just a one classic and visible example of clashing cultural values. Behavior just doesn't have universal meaning. Changing contexts is all about trying to unlearn all kinds of things, and I think some of them you never really do. I can sit there and experience direct criticism, for example, that's extremely normal in a German context and functions a little bit like the hitting and kicking on the playground (all part of the fun, right?) and mentally know it's not intended to hurt or reject, but I can't seem to actually erase that gut level emotional response that surfaces from all my years of training. Its like the best I'll ever be able to do is to sort of "console" my feelings back into place with accurate knowledge. But maybe I'm wrong. We'll see. :)
But I was talking about spring...
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