Essay on Patchwork Quilt Activity
In my course of American culture we were asked by our professor to elaborate a patchwork of Costa Rican culture in which we could express something specific from our Culture to the European students. They were studying Sustainable Development as part of their INEX (International Network for Educational Exchange) experience. The Cultural Activity was on Thursday, July 20th, 2010 and it first started with a presentation of Folklore dancing, followed by typical food. Later, the American culture class had to meet the European students at the interior Garden. Culture Students paired up with and European student as soon as they found out who had the same letter was given to them. European students explained about their culture first, and then the Culture students did explain their quilt piece and how that was reflected on their culture without telling the other student about their patchwork. Afterwards, the European student had to guess which patchwork his/her partner was.
In the mingling activity I was paired up with a German student of Maastricht University who is majoring in Economics. He started talking about all experiences he lived while being here, and then I described him my patchwork so he could guess which one was mine. My patchwork quilt represented Costa Rican beauty by means of Orchids. Supposedly, the patchwork is about sewing in lines or patterns different kinds of fabric, but mostly regarding colors and shapes. Mine was very creative I think, because I just sewed part of it and then I drew an orchid on the fabric. The main color was purple as the color for the orchid, and light green as the background of the drawing or patchwork. It has a wide variety of colours and styles in its writing, referring to the variety of Orchids we have in Costa Rica. I told him how important nature is for Costa Rica, and the symbolism that this rare flower has in this lands. It is a flower that it is admired for its beauty and uniqueness. He realized which one belonged to me and told me that he found it very interesting.
In brief, I think this mingling activity was very productive for us as future teachers. It was a different was to interact with another culture, but at the same time let the Europeans students know about ours in a very creative way. They completely enjoyed the Folklore dancing and typical food. Moreover, the activity also let us know more about them and in some cases become friends as part of this interesting activity. I really enjoyed it and I can tell I will definitely do it again in future. This kind of activities are very important to take into consideration when teaching culture, and it can be taken as example for future teaching lessons, in case we have this possibility of interacting with people from other cultures.
*Try to find mine among the other patchworks above (picture).
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