ANTI-BULLYING WEEK/ KINDNESS DAY

Anti-Bullying Week

Anti-bullying week is a annual event that is celebrated in United Kingdom and in our school as well.
It's a week that is celebrated to inform schools , children and teenagers,and parents to know that it takes a collective responsibility to stop bullying. 
The theme of the events change each year and this year the theme is "The Change Starts with US".
Along the week there will be a few special days like the "Odd Socks Day" to celebrate what makes us all unique.

Kindness Week

November 13 is the day we celebrate Kindness Day internationally. During the duration of the day kindness is encouraged in order to promote kindness and make the world better for everyone,  the people, animals and the environment.

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Kindness Week

Behaviors that seen during kindness week can be analyzed by using some terms that are found in sociology. One of the things that can help in understanding the behavior of bullies in ethnocentrism, or the view that one's own culture is superior than everyone else's way of doing things. That is why sometimes when a person from a different country arrives, their ideas, beliefs and customs are not always accepted, which can lead to negative behaviors of isolation towards the other person or of mocking their culture.

Contrary to that idea, we sometimes find cultural relativism, which is accepting that there are different ways to understand the world and that our own culture is not the only way of doing things. This is the type of positive behavior that is trying to be enforced in kindness week, accepting others who are different and breaking standards of beauty that society has established.

This week a kind of “norm” or expectation of right behavior has been established to encourage students into being more gentle towards each other. However, This is more of a folkway, because there is no serious punishment for not doing so, which as a consequence has lead some people to not feel the necessity of falling into the spirit. There seems to be a distorting lens in values, or different ideas of how people want society to be (everyone friendly and happy) versus how it actually is (the usual). Some people have not cared about the occasion of the week and continue doing their usual insults. This is because people don't see this week as a strict negative sanction to their behavior , it is really more of a folkway to them, or a norm that is not heavily encouraged that leaves the jokesters without too much trouble. Which in the end, leaves the real culture stay as a cycle of a person being the center of the joke as long as there are people that laugh.

Other people have participated in the activities of the week. The odd socks day, the superhero custom day and wearing purple shirts.  This are symbols to which people attach meaning for the anti-bullying campaign. The trend by which people in the school follow the example of classmates or friends to put on customs in an example of the effects of culture. Going along with the activities of spirit week brings positive sanctions for participating. But the school is also a pluralistic society of its own, so there are many different groups inside the school that have different attitudes towards this week, at the end of the day it all comes down to the different values people have.

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How culture drives behavior?

How

Drives behavior?

Culture is a system of beliefs  , values , and assumptions about life that guide behavior and are shared by generations. Culture is important because tell our stories, celebrate, remember the past, entertain ourselves, and imagine the future and Our creative expression helps define who we are, and helps us see the world through the eyes of others.  Culture drives behavior because behavior are shaped by personal thinking,  vision and values. When I traveled to the United states I saw a different lifestyle. I experience that people see you from head to toes.  In conclusion it's important to learn and understand how culture drives behavior  to avoid ethnocentrism and to avoid the different ways that a person can react when being exposed to a different culture: confront ,  complain and adapt.

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How culture drives behavior?

How culture drives behavior?
Culture drive behavior because as he said in the video when you travel to another country, for example, you live in Europe like he and then you travel to a country like Nicaragua, the people in Europe  did not talk with each other, they are not social if they don’t know you, but in a country like Nicaragua or even in Latinoamérica we are social people if we don’t know each other and they stay by me we constantly talk with each other, for that reason I’m sure that the culture drives totally our behavior, another example is when you travel to the EEUU and you drop off they did not help you, they only see you and that it, and in Latinoamérica, almost all the Latin people help, and that is a really big difference !

How has culture influenced your behavior?
Culture really influence our behavior, like he said conform is not a good way to do it because be conformist is not something that you have to apply in love, because even if you are Latin, American or even another nationalist you always will need something of other people that you do not even know, and be conformist is only be you and think that all you do is good but instead you think that you are really wrong, because you are not always good, also complain is not a good way to be, because is you complain about you or about yourself and is not good because you live in a bubble  as he said that is not helpful and healthy,  and Also if you adapt the way to be, is really helpfully because is really good been a person that can adapt her/his self to other cultures and that’s really good to be, for example, if  you are multicultural you can live your life good and not complains about nothing!

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How culture drives behavior?

how culture drives behavior?

Multiculturalism is the existence of multiple cultural traditions within a single country. 

When someone moves to a different country or is just visiting experiences cultural shock.there can be many different emotions when going through culture shock such as frustrated, irritable, anxious, isolated and even helpless because everything seems so out of hand and not possible. some things persons can do is try to adapt, give it a chance, and embrace the opportunity of learning about a new culture and the positive impact it may have on your life. 

As we saw in the video there are three main points.

confront: when you confront you believe that your behaviors are the right behaviors

.

complain: when you complain you can isolate yourself into a little social bubble living with separation from society. 

conform: when you accept the new country then you can truly benefit from diversity.

According to a Forbes study, workforce diversity and inclusion is KEY for innovation and business growth.  

innovation

business growth

According to McKinsey, companies with diverse executive boards enjoy significantly higher earning and return on equality.

Diverse boards

Higher Earnings

According to Harvard, diverse networks promote creativity.

Diverse Network

Creativity

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How does culture drive behavior?

How culture drives behavior

    Culture is used as a lens to view the outside world. Things like personal space are a big cultural factor that varies from continent to continent. Some countries are used to having big personal spaces, but some latin countries have very small personal space. From these behaviors can come out misunderstandings between cultures, even when it is out of respect. An example used by the nordic man was how nordic bus stops can only support 2 people due to their big personal spaces. This is how culture is in Norway, but if a religious person were to attempt to sit down between the 2 nords one might get up. This is due to their colossal personal space and might be misunderstood as hate towards the religious person, when in reality it is out of respect and discomfort. The normal reactions to cultural integration are to confront, comfort or complain.

There are 3 ways you can respond to another culture, you can either: 

• Complain: to isolate yourself with other similar people, forming bubbles
• Conform: adapt into or absorb the culture into yourself
• Confront: to compare own culture with other, with your own as the "correct" one

I have the behavior of an asian person, being kind of shy with a big personal space. This behavior is born from my asian household, being educated into this type of person at home. One of these behaviors can be explained just from the presence of a brother. An older brother will seem like authority or someone superior, who might take care of the little brother leading the little one to be dependent on him and shy with others. My growing environment was in a latin american society for about my whole life. The latin american community is one of close relationships, of knowing a friend and later knowing the friend's house or parents. This relationships of friendship can last and do not rely on age or status to work, This is how it is with some good people I know and I have conformed to this cutural aspect, which is not exclusive to latin america. 

Another adapted cultural aspect from a korean I posses is the behavior against physical contact. I respect the personal space of most people and might only intrude if it were a close friend, which is a trait adapted more from the latin community. There are times of comfort when I am isolated physically, but there are also moments of desire for close contact. 

In general, I have mostly conformed by taking some aspects of the latin culture into my inherited korean culture.

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Kermesse

Kermesse 2019

My experience in the Kermesse

For the first time, I went to the Kermesse since I was in charge of a game which was the play station for an hour. When I had arrived at school and had free time, I walked and saw all the activities that they offered. The school was really crowded and it was full of activities, starting from little things such as polishing nails to big things such as mechanic bulls and more. It seemed that everyone was enjoying and having a great time with their friends, family members choosing their favorite activities. If we relate this Kermesse with the sociological lenses, first, of course, we would have the functionalism lens. As people went to a place where they could exchange money into tickets to buy foods and participate in the activities the school offered, here existed the functionalism because all the aspects such as people, places (activities) served a function to make one big event which was Kermesse in this case, giving a great opportunity to people for having a great time.

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How culture drives behavior?

How culture drives behavior?


Culture always affects how people act and think; basically influencing the behavior of a person. And if we noticed, most of the people in all the world use cultural glasses which is the action of viewing the world and reacting towards it based on the culture each individual belongs to. We have the following situation as an example, that was mentioned in the video we've seen in the class. A man from Canada had traveled with his foreign friend to a region of Spain, where he got the opportunity to visit a place where they made sparkling wine. During the tour, the guide explained with a great passion to the visitants and she suddenly stopped. The reason was because of the expression of a man's friend. The guide had thought, his friend was not interested in what she was saying because his reaction and his face didn't seem to be. Since she (guide)  get the facial expression she used to and was viewing this situation through her own cultural glasses, she had interpreted the fact that he had a certain (neutral) face in a negative manner. As we saw in the example, people live wearing those cultural glasses because they have been raised, surrounded by all the factors such as values, beliefs, expressions, etc which would surely affect an individual's behavior and thoughts.

Three ways we can relate to the culture: 

1) Confront: Believing that their own behaviors are the right behaviors.  

2) Complain: Isolating themselves into social bubbles of foreigners in society
3) Conform: Adapting their own way to behave, so it fits on the society they are. 

My experience: 


To start, even though I was born in Costa Rica and lived my whole life in a foreign country, I think and view the world as Koreans do. Since I was born until to this moment, at my home I just talked in Korean with my family and all the things that surround such as the church, tv programs, food, friends, books, posters, academies are actually related to Korea. We still practice its culture such as taking off the shoes, eating with chopsticks, greeting adults bowing and respecting them, etc. Due to this reason, even though I'm living in Latin American countries, most of the time I wear cultural glasses and view the situations that occur based on what I've learned from my parents, which is basically Korean thought. For example, sometimes when I am in school and see that one person is disrespecting an adult, like replying to what are they saying instead of accepting the error, I can not understand due to my culture, where it is very polite.
Also, I've gone through all those three aspects (confront, complain, conform) since I moved from one country and another more than others (three times). First, when I was living in Costa Rica, even though I was born there, I always felt like a foreigner so I used to complain. When I was in school, I isolate myself in society and made my own wall whenever someone would come to talk to me. But then, I moved to Peru where my personality and behavior started to change. I thought that if I continued to be like in CostaRica and I wouldn't change, then I would be alone. So, I started to conform. Trying to adapt their own way to behave, so later I could fit on the society. While I was living there, I understood the way of behavior of the Peruvians and I also followed them to be part of that society. Later, when I had grown up more, I moved to Nicaragua and tried to practice the same thing I had practiced in Peru but suddenly I also started with the confront. Believed my own behavior was the right behavior, so I had problems at the beginning, which it took me time to adapt. However, now that time had passed I am practicing conform to this new country also, in order, I could enjoy my life in this country.

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culture behavior

How culture drives behavior?

 There are many types of cultures, there are cultures that have different languages, different gastronomies, different dances, no-one have the same culture, every single culture have a little but little change that makes different of the other. Behavior is the thing that one of us are. many of cultures has people who are nice in behavior. behavior is the thing that we make as good citizens. A good citizen has a high level of behavior, culture has influence in that point of behavior, but the first responsable of behavior are people. The culture are only an influence. If the culture are nice, when people has the costume to be nice citizens, citizens that always respect other, people who be empathic with other, people like that personality. That types of people have a good type of culture, and they culture can drives the behavior as goodness posible. The culture drives behavior when the culture made the citizens, obviously we are like culture is. We made us like culture makes with our society. Let me tell you an example, If my family has the costume of every day that we wakes up, we said good morning and share some feelings that always do. That action makes a good behavior, good behavior make good decisions, and the cycle be continue. The culture is the principle of us. If the country have a nice culture, we are good citizens.  Culture drives us as we like, if you don't like something in your culture you can skip it and be different, but not all citizens gonna do the change that you did already, so if you really need to change something wrong in your culture, you need to promote it and make that the other people started to do what you propuse to do and make the change as the culture needed. The reality of the things is that people follow what people do and what culture do as a daily current activities that is when cultures drives us. 

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How Culture Drives Behaviors

How Does 

Drive Behaviors?

Culture is something that greatly varies around the world. It can range from different language, customs and even how people interact with each other. Culture can determine how people act. This is because when a person has grown in a certain environment where the majority of people act a certain way, it sticks to them. Take as an example two countries far apart from each other, Nicaragua and France. If you go to Nicaragua and ask for directions, people would be very eager to help, and if you are a foreigner who can't speak spanish very well, it most likely that people would start asking "Quién habla ingles? (who speaks English)?"  and they may even be eager to take you to the place you need to go.This is because people here are very friendly and open, so foreigns get surprised at how people act here. But if you go to France, asking for directions while being a foreigner is a hazard. Fresh people speak English, but people will answer you in French or simply shake their heads no when asking them in English. I have a French teacher that went to France and was wandering around for a while asking for directions because people where not eager to help. Culture can also drive people to be more individual or to have strong relationships. For example, a person that grew in a culture that really values individuality (like the U.S) will prefer to make things by himself, like buying drinks for himself rather than for the whole group. A person who grew in a culture that values relationships and amability(like Canada), would be eager to purchase drinks for the whole group in that situation.This differences in culture around the world are why individuals don't share the same behaviors or ways of thinking. The fact that not everyone acts the same is good to boost up creativity and to solve problems, but it can also cause confusion between two people that have different cultures. People may end up thinking the other person dislikes them, but in fact the reason another person acts in a strange way is because his culture has just taught him different attitudes.

There are different ways that a person can react when being exposed to a different culture:

• Confront: A person does not accept a different culture 
• Complain:A person isolates himself from the different culture and does not adapt
• Adapt: A person benefits from diversity

My own reaction to a different culture

When I traveled to the United States I was exposed to a different lifestyle.  The pace that people have over there is completely different from here. We would travel very long distances unlike in Nicaragua where everything is close. Another thing was that every time I watched the T.V it would be full of adds with very little screen time for the actual show or movie.  Another thing was that people like to get things done very quickly there, so they value time a lot and put a lot of importance in punctuality. Another thing was the people.  Some people would look at you from over the shoulder. I noticed that the foreigners we met in the U.S  where the people that treated us with most kindness unlike some of the natives. But I also noticed that attendants from shops or restaurants where really dedicated to their work (they also expected you to tip, or they would get offended). I feel like over there people are really hard working due to the competitive conditions they live in, which are certainly harder conditions than here.  The big malls, the long distances, the people... it was hard to adapt to that. At first I confronted that culture, I was not really used to that lifestyle and everything seemed weird to me, but in the end I enjoyed the change. It was not hard to get used to the distances and in the end I was able to try a lot of things out. Like trying different foods, visiting an aquarium and interacting with other people.  So in my experience, it was a good opportunity to learn about other cultures and I took advantaged of it.

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Culture Changes Culture

HOW CULTURE DRIVES BEHAVIOR?

Culture can change a person's behavior. Many people grow up in an environment fit to their culture and most grow up used to that environment, which can cause some misunderstanding or problems when they start meeting with different cultures. 

Culture can change culture either positively or negatively. Positively because a person's culture may be very righteous or it's main concerns may be to act kindly, and this could help with their behavior towards others. Negatively because a person may meet with someone whose culture's values a opposite or against their own's, and this could make them have a lot of conflict between them.
Another way culture could affect behavior is through misunderstandings.


Personally, I complain a lot about other cultures. There was this one time where I was visiting a friend of my dad, along side my family. Since in Asian culture most children are taught to be silent when adults are talking. However, this isn't the case in many lain-american cultures, where everyone talks regardless of age. And so, the friend of my dad prompted me and my sister a lot to start a conversation, but we just started feeling awkward. Along side the fact that I'm extremely socially awkward and introverted I had a hard time and complained a lot.

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Los Guatuzos Style

Los Guatuzos Style 

The "Los Guatuzos" Wildlife Reserve has a territorial extension of 437.5 km² between the southern part of Lake Nicaragua and the swamps in the south of the San Juan River. From the administrative point of view, it belongs to the Municipality of San Carlos.

Dropping out of school and dropping out of basic education is one of the biggest problems in the area.

This same situation of isolation and abandonment on the part of the institutions is also reflected in the services of health, water, lighting, and a public toilet.

The conditions of poverty and extreme poverty experienced by people are scenarios that trigger not only economic and material but also social and human rights difficulties that affect the country and have a direct impact on families.

On the other hand, the deficiency of basic services aggravates the psychosocial and economic problems of the population, not giving them opportunities to change their situation of poverty, their low schooling and lack of competitive occupational skills to find decent jobs.

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Kermesse 2019

Colegio Notre Dame, Nicaragua

The 13 of October 2019, the Notre Dame school hosted it's Kermesse. Which offered different activities such as watching sport games, riding the mechanic bull, eating a variety of food (that ranged from pizza to national delicacies) and other things that where aimed for smaller kids like the trampolines. This was my first kermesses at this school. I had only seen a few things on the internet about the last kermesse this school had hosted, and my classmates don't seem to have enjoyed themselves too much in this one. But despite what everyone thinks, I don't believe it was bad, it was just aimed towards a younger audience. Honestly I just went to do my turn in a my post (video games) and then went out to eat something, but my brother did more things and enjoyed himself more, from what my mom told me. I feel like most games where aimed towards little kids, and that is why adolescents may have felt kind of bored at it like I did.  I could also identify some things that we have been discussing during sociology class. 

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One of which I identified was functionalism. There where people in each game and in each post that sold things, to wait for people that where there wanting to buy something. People would also make lines so there was no disorder. People where also required to buy tickets to do any activity. This tickets where also a symbol, because although they don't have any real value by themselves, they represent that the person who is handing them has already payed for whatever it is he wants to buy.

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