Culture Differences Concerning Time

 

2/3/22

Week 5: Response to "Culture Differences Concerning Time"

Monochronic societies place high value on schedule and procedure. The US is definitely a monochronic society. One simple evidence is all the clocks everywhere, and people are always concerned with what time it is. Appointments are also huge here. People make appointments for everything from haircuts and manicures to “playdates” parents make for their kids. Polychronic societies, however, value relationships over schedules. I don’t have any personal experience with a polychronic paradigm, but from what brother Ivers described, it sounds like a scheduled appointment can be set aside in favor of a personal situation that might arise. I think there may be some overlap in the two paradigms with regard to the importance of connections. Connections can also be very important in the monochronic United States. Especially in the world of business, connections can often be the key to getting an inside track to a good job. For example, in our stake a few years back we had weekly networking meetings. Members of the stake would attend, as well as people who were looking for work, and they could network together. There’s even a well-known expression, “It’s not what you know, but who you know”.

This lesson applies to a situation that recently happened to my husband who is a teacher. He teaches English Literature at an all-boy’s private Jewish school. The boys spend the first part of their day in religious classes, and in the afternoon they have secular classes, my husband’s being one of them. He told me how sometimes a boy will just get up and leave the classroom. It could be to go to the bathroom, but sometimes it’s just to leave early, or even go hangout in the common room. In our United States paradigm, that is completely unheard of. Students should always ask the teacher if they can leave, or at least let them know ahead of time if they need to leave early. Just getting up and walking out is considered rude. But for these boys, it’s no big deal. They’re not meaning to be rude at all. Their paradigm just doesn’t include that behavior as unacceptable. I think this is another example of how, as future teachers, we need to be aware of our students’ perceptions of time and schedules.

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