Ms. Rommens' Form VI IB Social and Cultural Anthropology class is learning about cross-cultural understanding.

With a simulation called BaFa' BaFa', the class was broken into two groups, the Alpha culture and the Beta culture. The Alpha culture is relationship-oriented and the Beta culture's main focus is trading. Each member of both groups had a different character to portray. In addition to playing their specific roles, each student was tasked to trade paperclips with the opposite group. Throughout the activity, our students learned that both communication and trading paperclips are not such easy tasks. They had to negotiate and find ways to learn about the other group's culture.

Once the activity was done, Ms. Rommens spoke to both groups together and asked questions on what they learned about the Alpha and Beta cultures, including their different ways of communicating and their beliefs. "I learned that you have to be open-minded when you meet someone new," explained Mathilde, Form VI. "Communication between different cultures is very important and not having an open mind can easily cause disputes," observed Rohan, Form VI. Stella, Form VI, pointed out "if you want to live in a friendly world, you have to communicate but also be able to compromise and adapt to each other."

Ms. Rommens was pleased to see her entire class really enthusiastic and get into their roles, which served to help them further understand the message.