PSU Magazine Spring 1993

• • puppet show. That would do it, the students in PSU associate professor Devorah Lieberman's intercultural communica– tion class decided. They'd write a puppet script, adapting the "Wizard of Oz" theme, where each player would represent a different culture or ethnic background. Dorothy would be black, the Tin Person female, and the Scarecrow would speak, perhaps, with a Japanese accent. The challenge this group of graduate students had been given by Lieberman was to find a way to introduce the con– cept of intercultural diversity to a class of first graders at Portland's Stephenson Elementary School. "I really believe in seamless educa– tion," Lieberman says. "One of my goals as a professor is to put my stu– dents in touch with the field they're studying-the world they'll be working with after they leave the university." Because most of Lieberman's inter– cultural communication students will probably work as corporate consultants, she says, that world most likely will not include a professional relationship with first-grade students. "But regardless of age, whether we're working with execu– tives in a large company, or with first 16 PSU us • graders, the principles-respecting diversity, coming up with strategies for making interaction effective-are the same." And what better place to start teaching the value of diversity than in the first grade? Lieberman knows what it's like to have a curiosity about the world and the people in it instilled from an early age. From the time she was eight years old, her parents encouraged Lieberman and her two older brothers to partici– pate in as many volunteer situations and programs that offered exposure to different cultures as they "could get their hands on." Once a week, the children were required to make an after-dinner presentation about something in which they had an interest. "It couldn't be something we just tossed off," Lieberman says. "It had to be researched. It had to have visual aids, and we had to field questions on the subject." The experience taught the children, Lieberman says, to organize and have presence; to be interested in what was happening globally. And Friday nights for Lieberman's childhood family were declared "family night." No dates. No dances. No movies or slumber parties with the high Devorah Leiberman says that barriers created by cultural differences can be broken down ifwe stop to Describe, Understand, and Encourage before we judge. By Eva Hunter Associate Professor Devorah Lieberman school gang. "It was something that we'd call an 'interpersonal interaction evening' now," Lieberman says. Each :5 0 < 0.. i5 UJ > UJ t; >- "' "' 5 :c 0..