Week 9 Impressions by Caitlyn Homer

The Language Barrier…or the American Cultural Barrier?

One of the many perks of studying abroad in London, I assumed, was being able to communicate in the same language. I was prepared for different words and phrases for basic day-to-day things (e.g. restroom à toilet or ‘loo’) but what I was not prepared for was the different style of communication I would be thrown into.

In American culture, at least from my experience and perspective, work and personal worlds tend to have clear boundaries between each other. For example, the office kitchen is an inappropriate place to celebrate a coworker’s birthday, unless of course the big boss isn’t around, in which case by all means have your cake and eat it too. If not, save it for happy hour when everyone is off the clock and not under constant scrutiny. What I’m really getting at is that casual and personal banter in an American office space is uncommon and…kind of sneaky.

Sneaky doesn’t happen here in British office spaces, it seems. My privatized American self has been questioned, cross-examined, discussed, criticized, and praised and sometimes all at once. Personal boundaries are irrelevant. In fact, they are entirely relevant and central to the working culture here, especially in the sector I’ve been placed in (or thrown into, rather).

I suppose I should give a little background on what exactly I mean by this. My internship placement is at Elfrida Rathbone Camden with the Leighton Project. The Leighton Project is an education project for young adults with learning difficulties. Upon receiving my placement, I assumed I would be working with students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, etc. and I felt entirely prepared for it due to my sensitive and understanding personality (or so I thought)…but boy I was wrong.

The learning difficulties I work with are severe learning difficulties, usually associated with Downs Syndrome or autism spectrum. Normally, when working with learning difficulties of any nature in the United States, I would be expected to abide by privacy laws of all sorts and sign documents protecting this. I expected to have that expectation here in the UK, but I came to find out that I was very wrong. Instead, open dialogue of everyone’s disabilities are not only encouraged but also necessitated. For example, when one of my students began to have a meltdown about a task we were doing in class, my first inclination was to remove him from the classroom setting so that he could calm down and talk about it if (and only if) he wanted to. I quickly found out that this was the wrong move when I was told to sit back down and tell the class what was going on. I found this alarming and cruel, but my student did not. He openly told his classmates what he found difficult about the task and why he was struggling with it, and his classmates seemed to appreciate this and chimed in with about their own struggles and needs. Classes here are typically run with open dialogue at all times and although it is startling to me, it seems to be extremely effective. It really does make more sense to have an open dialogue with everyone about needs and limits of disabilities rather than sweeping it under the rug and cross your fingers nobody notices. That’s another funny thing about living in the UK—it seems as though everyone notices everything, and yes, they will talk about it and sometimes will stare at you awkwardly once it is brought up. This whole “talking about everything” has been a challenge for me to both understand and adapt to, but I have come to appreciate it. Although it seems like nothing gets done in the office space, this constant (sometimes indirect) chatter is the real element to British productivity…and I like it.