While initially reading Peck's theory, I immediately thought of most of the sports teams I had been a part of over the years, however the more I thought about what experience best exemplifies the stages, I thought of my study abroad trip to the Dominican Republic. The program was not through Ohio State, so there were students from different universities across the country, but the majority of us were on the same flight from Miami to Santiago, so as we found each other in the airport we quickly entered the pseudo community stage. We were all so excited to begin our trip together, everything was great. We sat near each other on the plane, made small talk, and tried to figure out how they did customs checks together.
Quickly we were thrown into activities and class, the chaos stage. We were given a placement test that divided the group into different groups based on our proficiency in Spanish and we decided what classes to take at the university. Every weekend we had pre-planned activities that some of the students were less than thrilled about and caused some friction between the students and our supervisors in the program. We all started to realize who we were going to get along with and our social groups were formed. There were never any real outward issues, but we knew that not everyone was going to be best friends. After some serious bonding time getting lost in the city and taking trips outside of those pre-planned by our supervisors, we took the emptiness path and reached the third stage. We put aside all the things that had divided us and made more of an effort to include everyone because we knew the group was pretty much all we had in this foreign country.
The program only lasted two months, so we didn't have a lot of time in the final stage of being a true, authentic community, but we got there and made sure we made the most of our time together. We made decisions that kept the group together on excursions even if that meant a few people sacrificing their first choice in activities. We danced at clubs and watched the NBA Finals together over free beer courtesy of the New Yorker who owned the bar we frequented. We did our final culture projects in groups, helped each other with the papers we had to turn in for our literature class, and took one last trip to the beach together.
Hi Julia! I also immediately thought about sports teams when it came to Peck's Theory but I think it is interesting how you also saw it in relation to your study abroad trip. It shows that Peck's theory of creating an authentic community can be geared towards a variety of things. It is all about people coming together within a community, working together by putting their differences aside, and making the most of a situation.
ReplyDeleteI found that Pecks theory easily transferred over toward my sports experiences. Your example is great because it shows how people come together into a community based off of common things shared by each other. Your experience sounded insane because of how diverse your community and its ideas must have been because of all the students from different universities from across the nation.So many different views on issues; it would have been interesting to sort out problems I feel. Although, I am sure it was an amazing learning experience being in a foreign country with complete strangers for two months!
ReplyDeleteHey Julia! Thats awesome you got to go to the DR!! I think a lot people view sports teams/ activities as a view of Pecks theory because it all eventually brings the teams together!!
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