And now its time to panic

It's only a few weeks until the semester starts. I thought I had a series of Tuesdays and Fridays to finish up my prep for class.

Then, it turns out that I have to take four of those days to watch my kid and a friends kid. The summer program is closed for the last two weeks of summer and so . . . someone needs to be home. One of my friends and I are dividing up the weeks.

The other week, I was in the big city. When you are in the big city, one of the things you do (stick with me, this is fits the above theme) is wander the HUGE bookstore. It used to be that I would wander fiction and wedding planning. My DH must have rubbed off on me over the past 10-12 years because I started in Business, looking for interesting books. Then, I went to History. After I finished with those sections, I headed to biography. I did wander to kids, but I never made it to fiction. Actually, I guess truth be told I started in Bargains, then went to business.

One of the books I found was Sidney Poitier's autobiography. This was something I've wanted to read for a while. But, I found a great resource for my class. One of the components of my class that I struggle with is how to get the students to understand "culture." This is a major concept in the class and if they don't understand it, they will have a tough time.

In his book, he talks about his life on a Caribbean Island, in the Bahamas, and in Florida. He talks about how the culture of each of these areas was different. It's great!!!

I was also talking with another faculty member at a party Sat. Some of the things he said triggered a few ideas with me. One of the things he said was that the students needed to define what culture was. A few quick types of the keyboard and I realized that they could do this.

So, how would you define the culture you live in, the culture of the organizations you interact within?