Icebreaker: ‘How Does Your Family Cook Rice?’
At first glance, asking students how their family or culture cooks rice might seem simple—even obvious. But as someone who has taught emotionally charged and identity-centered courses, I know how powerful it can be to begin with a shared experience that invites difference without defensiveness.
What I love about this strategy is that it centers cultural humility, models perspective-taking, and invites students to speak from a place of lived knowledge before we ever ask them to weigh in on more abstract or politicized content. It communicates early on: Your experience matters here. And so does your curiosity about others.
I designed an activity to address these challenges by encouraging students to provide their perspective on a shared experience during the first week of class. The activity, called the RiceBreaker, asks students to answer a straightforward question: “how does your family or your culture cook rice?” By using the example of a simple ingredient found across the globe, the activity demonstrates how students can hold different perspectives on the same topic based on their own experiences, and models for the class how to approach conversation throughout the semester when perspectives on a given topic may vary. This activity encourages students to develop a framework for incorporating differing viewpoints and engage with ideas to which they may have had limited exposure.