The most popular response I've gotten after telling Americans I am studying abroad in Germany is, "Oh Germans are mean," along with other negative adjectives like "scary" or "harsh." This terrifies me because I am a really friendly person and I am very sensitive to people's opinions about me. I usually gage how much a person likes me and if I will like that person by how nice they are in that first interaction. I think it is very important for me to keep learning about the German culture and keep that in mind when I meet German people. If I don't, I can see myself being easily offended or believing people do not like me. On the self audit, I scored pretty high on both openness and flexibility, so hopefully these traits will help me get used to the way Germans interact.
I learned from a cultural context inventory that my communication style is high context, but Germany is a country with a very low context culture. This will be interesting for me in an elementary classroom. One characteristic of a low context culture that I do not identify with is efficiency. Speed is valued and how efficiently you learn something is very important. My teaching philosophy focuses more about the process of coming to a conclusion, so I think taking time to fully learn a skill or material is important. I am nervous, but I know I can and will learn a lot!
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