Differences in Emotional Expressivity

When I lived on the Texas/Mexico border in a Hispanic community, I fell in love with their expressiveness.  They are loving and affectionate people.  I can remember the first time I got kissed on the cheek, it took me by surprise but it is a tradition of expression that I fell in love with.

Fast forward to my move to the New England area...the people are different here.  I am originally from the south and there is a definite difference in culture.  I have been told that I have a strong personality.  That is not something I had while living in the south but acquired over time and many moves.  Now when I go back down south people will tell me that I can be intense.  However, moving to the New England area, I find the people intense.  It took me a while to realize that they are not being rude, just straight forward.  In the south, we tend to be more passive to avoid contention.

When dealing with a classroom full of diversity, emotional expressivity is one of the many reasons why it is important to get to know your students.  As you get to know them, you can decipher without being offended.  This is not only applicable to the teacher but the students also need to learn about fellow classmates so that they can accept differences of expression without being offended.

I think that there was some great advice in the video for people who like to travel.  We were counselled to look around at what people are doing when in another country, to see what is acceptable behaviour before just doing what we think we can.  I like to travel so I thought this was a good piece of sound advice.