Rancho technology update

On Tuesday, I filmed Mrs. Dee's lesson on understanding how cultures differ. She used the simulation training program BaFa'BaFa, one she has been using for years. She split her class into two; one portion stayed in her classroom, the other went to the Music Portable. What did I film? Well, the BaFa'BaFa site describes the training this way:

What happens in BaFa'BaFa'?

After an initial briefing two cultures are created. The Alpha culture is a relationship oriented, high context, strong ingroup outgroup culture. The Beta culture is a highly competitive trading culture. After the participants learn the rules of their culture and begin living it, observers and visitors are exchanged. The resulting stereotyping, misperception and misunderstanding becomes the grist for the debriefing.

What I filmed was the students in the act of observing and visiting another culture whose language they do not speak. They must pick up clues to how this culture works using only their powers of observation. It was truly a wonderful experience to see them so engaged, so passionate, and so perceptive. Ms. Dees was amazed at the quickness with which her students divined the rules of the "other" culture. We're planning on showing them the video we took of them in this "teachable moment" as a way of reinforcing what they learned last Tuesday.