THE CULTURAL PLUNGE EXPERIENCE.

The experience I chose for my cultural plunge was to attend a Buddhist ceremony in Thurgoona on
Sunday 10th August. Originally the service was meant to be conducted in South Albury but due to a
string of break-ins they recently moved the service to a residence in Thurgoona. This made me
question why an apparent peaceful group would be targeted like this. I found it challenging to find a
cultural experience as I live in Tumbarumba. There is a Jehovahs Witness group in Tumbarumba,
however, due to the small town mentality I felt that this was not an option for me. I chose the cultural
plunge in Albury as I am a former resident of Albury and as such I found it easy to navigate to the
ceremonys location. I chose to attend the Buddhist ceremony as I had never attended a Buddhist
service before and was unsure of what may occur during it. The only previous knowledge I have about
Buddhism is from my childhood watching the TV series Monkey on the ABC after school, which as I
have since learnt was more about the teachings of Buddha. Which didnt really provide any insight at
all for this experience. Driving to Thurgoona that morning my only concern was would the gift that I
was bringing be acceptable, as I learnt Saturday afternoon that a gift would be appropriate for being
invited into their sacred service. From my youth I do not recall taking gifts to Sacred Heart church
when my mum wanted to change from St Pats. I am a non-practicing Roman Catholic and I am getting
married to an Anglican in October this year. I believe that we are both kind hearted generous people
and quite forgiving but more importantly we are open-minded. As there is not a lot of media coverage
about Buddhist monks I was expecting a relaxed and simplistic service.
On arriving it was obvious I was the other for this experience. At the beginning there was only the
monk, an Asian mother and daughter and an older European gentleman. During the service, another
mother arrived with her daughter also. There was kneeling matts for approximately 20 people and
after the service I enquired was there typically more in attendance to which I was informed that
normally yes, however due to the recent move and being August numbers drop. I wondered if this
was due to the incursion of CSU students during this period, as Michael Veres stated that student
have been visiting every year since 2011. With the reduced numbers it also made me consider how I
may have felt if there was huge numbers of people.
The service was separated into four parts, starting with Mediation/Dhamma Talk, requesting five
precepts/Shanga Dana Offering, Alms offering and concluding with Blessing. The service was then
followed by lunch. I chose to decline the offer of sharing food as although I was a guest I had planned
to meet my fianc after for lunch in town, however this made me feel bad as they had created some
fantastic dishes.

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On arriving to the location the members were polite in greeting me outside whilst they went about
their morning routine and I noticed that shoes were taken off and not needed inside the premises.
This seemed normal to me as many houses have I entered without shoes. On entering the pray
section all the matts faced the front were a small Budda sat on a table surrounded by blooming
flowers. Up the back of the room was several chairs. This hinted to me that I was to sit at the chairs
and not use the matt. This again highlighted the sensation of being the outsider. I did not feel
comfortable asking would they like me to take a place on a matt up the back of the room, so in order
to not offend or to overstep the mark. As the meditation began the monk informed that it will go for
about 45 to 50 minutes. Instantly I thought that I better get comfortable, although I was holding a
pray pamphlet that I was reluctant to put it down since the monk handed it to me. I followed the
monks instructions on the meditation and 30 minutes passed quite quickly in the end and I soon found
my mind wandering about various topics, but mainly about my upcoming wedding and university
studies and balancing the five subjects.
Once the meditation had ended the monk led the group through the remainder of the ceremony. The
high majority of this was done in Pali, the native language. I had never heard this been spoken before
and was amazed at how complex it seemed when reading it on the page to hearing them speak it. In
my mind I attempted to pronounce the words but they were far too difficult. This part of the service
may have continued for 30 minutes as I was unable to tell the difference between section 2 and
section 3. During what I thought was the Blessing before lunch the monk asked the question, what is
culture? I felt reluctant to respond because I was unsure if it was a rhetorical question and in the end
more questions were posed, which all I could see linked back to. How will coming today help myself
as a teacher in the future? In the end I politely responded by learning about other cultures I can hope
to learn and understand more about Identity.
During the experience it was interesting as to the literacy skills that were necessary engaging in this
event and what impact on my identity this may have for the future. In order to operate in any social
practice, you would normally prepare yourself to be able to use the literacy skills within the situation
effectively. So as stated earlier, going in blind made me reflect upon my own literacy knowledge and
how adaptive I can be to various situations. This was easy to do as I had an hour and half drive home
to reflect. As a future teacher it is important that children are taught to be socially literate and use
these literacy skills to be able to adapt any situation, whilst staying culturally mindful when
appropriate which can help shape ones identity. Teachers need to impart the skills and knowledge on
how to use their literacy skills in order to participate, understand and ultimately succeed in navigating
their way as 21st century learners. The need is also there to utilise these skills in their interaction with
multimodal, multi-literacy and social environments within and outside their own cultural normality.

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For students to be able to do this, as teachers, we must give careful consideration as to how students
identify themselves within literacy contexts when drawing on their language and literacy experiences
from cultural and home backgrounds. It is a teachers responsibility to help build upon their previous
exposure to technological literacy and multimodal texts and by giving consideration to what it means
to teach and learn literacy as a 21st century learner, where their life experiences will be different from
what we experienced as a student. None of this can be possible if as a teacher we ourselves have not
had the exposure to alternative cultures. Which to me means, in the future, I should immerse myself
in the community and visit different ethnic groups and cultures to better understand where they are
coming from and to best help the students and possible relate to them.
In Pahl and Roswells text "Literacy and Education: Understanding the New Literacy Studies in the
Classroom (2005), it is mentioned that teachers need to link global and local literacies in the
classroom. Meaning I will need to understand how students transfer their knowledge across local
and global contexts into new settings and identities. Therefore, student cultural settings need to be
scaffolded into literacy teaching to ensure they are given the opportunity to express the literacies
they have experienced thus far (Hoffnung, Hoffnung, Seifert, Burton Smith, & Hine, 2010, p. 50). In
Fozdar, Wlding and Hawkins text Race and Ethnic Relations (2012), it suggest that despite people
belonging to one ethnic group it does not mean they also share the same thoughts. Therefore,
many methods of reflecting on the ethnic and cultural practices are necessary and are available
within the curriculum to help enhance a students expression of culture. For example, the use of role
plays, music and the artistic work, and via 21st century multimodality on computers via medium
such as digital images and speech can all be used. In utilising these approaches, students are able to
place and express themselves in both their local and global identity. It is imperative that teachers
structure language activities which allow all students to develop greater ownership in literacy
practices at school, by having multi-literacy frameworks to meet their contemporary literacy needs
which will have an impact on building their identity. It would be incorrect of myself as a future
teacher to exclude other cultures, as suggested as a means to manage diversity (Fozdar, Wilding, &
Hawkins, 2012). A better approach would be to take the Pluralist model (Fozdar, Wilding, &
Hawkins, 2012), which as suggested that everyone mixes together whilst maintaining their own
distinct individuality. By utilising this approach can ensure that each student will be able to
incorporate the parts of each background that they value and develop an identity of their own.
Language is at the centre of communication and a child arriving at school with a good grasp of oral
literacy skills is better prepared to learn to read and write (Fellowes & Oakley, 2010, p. 4). Therefore,
young children should be exposed to various forms of language experiences and to have participated
in diverse types of social discourses to extend their verbal competencies prior to coming starting

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school. If a student moves to the area from abroad they should also be encouraged to experience
various Discourses in the community. Young child mimic the language and behaviours of the cultural
capital they have been immersed in, which is no different from when I used to mimic the speech and
phrases used in the TV shows I watched and would have happened in the previous generation before
that. Bilinguals use either language depending on the cultural situation in which they find themselves.
The children at the Buddhist ceremony would be engaging in code switching (Fellowes & Oakley,
2010, p. 26). If English is not a childs first language, the teacher needs to be aware of cultural
difference. They need to be aware of the affects these cultural differences may have on how the child,
and how they communicate their identity through the texts which they create and how they listen
and make meaning of the texts they read (Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl, & Holliday, 2010, p.
43). It is important to acknowledge and value a childs home language and culture in the learning
environment, as shown in the integration of cultural awareness of Indigenous Australians in the
National Curriculum. As their teachers, we need to accommodate and display this awareness when
programing, by giving opportunities for students to participate in multi-literacy activities which use
different linguistic systems within the same space such as making a book incorporating different
languages and dual texts (Pahl & Rowsell, 2012, p. xix).
Multimodality is how individuals make meaning of different kinds of modes (Pahl & Rowsell, 2012, p.
28). Whether using written or visual modes, such as Publisher on the computer, these modes are units
of measuring meaning and representation. Modal texts carry different Discourses according to Gee
in Pahl and Rowsell (2012) and are made up of visuals, sounds, movements and gestures (Pahl &
Rowsell, 2012, p. 28) and ways of knowing, doing, talking, reading and writing (Pahl & Rowsell, 2012,
p. 14). In a classroom, students as text users and meaning makers need to understand texts, how they
are put together in order to read and create texts (Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl, & Holliday,
2010, p. 43). This made following the Buddhist service easier as although I could not understand the
words on the handout I could follow along. It would be highly beneficial for teachers to be able to link
together the artifactual and digital literacies, to ensure students can further understand meaning
making (Pahl & Rowsell, 2012, p. 53). Understanding texts are artefacts of practices; this will enable
for a further evocative engagement with language, as students begin to emerge as text critics who
develop their problem solving skills through the use of images linked with artefacts. All of which will
engage the student to challenge their own thoughts and beliefs as their identity forms and learn to
assimilate the information and change their thoughts to be more accommodating, through the
students cognitive development.

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The impact of my visit to the Buddhist ceremony I do not think will show until my next encounter, be
that another ceremony or topic of conversation arises about Buddhism. I do know that I have a lot
more respect for Buddhist in general and the peaceful lifestyle they lead as compared to the complex
western life I live. The participation in the service also allowed me to reflect in regards to what to
believe, and why. In going to the service, with no expectations it would change my mind about
religious ideology, however by the end of the session, I realised that I my core values are similar to
Buddhist ones as taught by my parents. I recognised that maybe my identity isnt as sound as I
originally thought. I do not believe this encounter would lead to the prospect of belief in something
new, that I had ultimately decided long ago I am happy with my current beliefs.

REFERENCES
Fellowes, J., & Oakley, G. (2010). Understanding oral language. Language, Literacy and Early Childhood
Education, 1-30.
Fozdar, F., Wilding, R., & Hawkins, M. (2012). Race and Ethnic Relations. South Melbourne: Oxford University
Press.
Hoffnung, M., Hoffnung, R. J., Seifert, K. L., Burton Smith, R., & Hine, A. (2010). Childhood. Milton, Brisbane:
John Wiley & Sons.
Pahl, K., & Rowsell, J. (2012). Literacy and Education: Understanding the New Literacy Studies in the Classroom
(2nd ed.). London: Sage Publications.
Winch, G. W., Johnston, R. R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy (4th ed.). South
Melbourne, Victoria: Oxford University Press.

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Craig Edwards 11168546 EED214