I'M A ....

Copyright © 1997, Sivasailam Thiagarajan. All rights reserved.

Here's a fast-paced activity to highlight different cultural variables.

Ask participants to complete this sentence:

I am a(n) _______________ .

After they have done this, ask them to complete the same sentence 10 different ways.

Ask each person to place his or her list (written side down) on a table and pick up some else's.

Debrief by calling out various categories and asking for examples from different lists.

Here are some suggested categories:

activity level (couch potato)
age (senior citizen)
association membership (Mensa member)
astrological sign (Aries)
belief (pro-life proponent)
birth order (first born)
ethnicity (hispanic)
family type (person from a large family)
gender (woman)
interests (mystery-story reader)
language (Spanish speaker)
marital status (divorced woman)
national origin (African)
national politics (Democrat)
organization (IBM employee)
personal characteristic (impatient person)
personality type (introvert)
physical characteristic (tall person)
political ideology (capitalist)
profession (trainer)
professional approach (behaviorist)
race (Caucasian)
region (Southerner)
religion (Roman Catholic)
socioeconomic status (yuppie)
thinking style (analytical)
tribe (Kpelle)

Stress the main learning point that there are more dimensions of difference than race or national origin.

Copyright © 1999. Workshops by Thiagi, Inc. All rights reserved
URL: http://www.thiagi.com/game-ima.html
Revised: October 1, 1999