cultural models

cultural models, according to Gee, are ways we recognize the world based on our belief systems. These systems are typically innately learned, so we’re not always aware of them. When we think of work, and we assume that a good employee should always show up on time, and work their hardest, we are speaking of a specific cultural model learned by middle and working class America. We don’t always practice this belief, but it is the idea we hold about work.


Sometimes our beliefs don’t match our actions, and we don’t recognize this mismatch. Yesterday I saw a guy getting on the bus I was on with a Che Guevara tattoo on one calf and a red communist star on the other calf. The work was well done too. About 5 minutes into the ride he begins a conversation with his companions on where they should eat dinner. He throws out quizno’s. the ridiculously corporate toasted sub shop. Now che and most versions of communism (china is attempting communism with capitalism, we’ll see how that works out) are very anti-capitalism, but here is my fellow bus driver, buying into capitalism for his dinner while he wears anti-capitalism on his skin. A slight mismatch of cultural models, but not one he’s recognizing. Like most people, these mismatches are below our notice.

These models function in a way to make daily life easier for us. Instead of processing ideas like quizno’s is a national chain, which is pro-capitalist, I’m not capitalist, I should make my food choices accordingly, most people simply make choices based on convenience and ease. It’s easy to know how to act as a student when in a classroom. The student knows to sit in the many desks facing the front, and the teacher knows to go to the front of the classroom to be the teacher. These are cultural models of classrooms. These school cultural models are also where we get into trouble. With increasing movement of classes to online where do students pick up their cultural models of how to read and behave online? I have to figure out the correct way of leaving author feedback on a fanfiction site, and I have to figure out how to write a diary post on dailykos, and I have to figure out how to talk to fellow WoW members, all of this is done by lurking. But in a classroom everyday counts, and we must have a presence to earn the grade. So how do we figure out how to act? Are student simply mashing their other cultural models into something that fits within the environment? What happens when one student’s model doesn’t fit well with another’s? Ultimately, how do we create space in an online class to allow students safe space to explore the region and figure out how to interact and how to be, so they can get the most from the class?