How can we teach about other cultures with respect.?

I think that two of the best ways to teach about other cultures is through music and food. In different grades you can focus on different topics in other cultures (family dynamic, beliefs, rituals, dress, etc) but music and food can be incorporated from early childhood on, never getting boring.

Everyone can relate to music. Even if it's not their style, even if they think it's horrid, they can recognize it as music. Music and visual arts are the only two 'necessities of life' that experts can't explain through evolution. Music started as words, and art as pictographs, but their evolution into extravagant necessities can't be explained. Music tells a lot about a culture; the spirit, the shared values, the formality--all without words.

Food is another way to introduce other cultures. In one of the classrooms I worked in we had a new child from Japan, who spoke little English and was constantly made fun of for what was in her lunch box. We invited her mother to come in and talk to the kids about their culture, how what we see as 'gross' foods are their hamburgers and hot dogs, and they see those as our gross foods. The next day she came back and, as a class, we made hot dog sushi (rice and seaweed wrapped around hot dogs) and every one loved them; her lunch became the most coveted trade one could make.

I think that it is our job as educators to open our students eyes and minds to those that are different from what we think of as normal. Everyone has their own story, and each culture can teach us more about ourselves.

Image credit: http://www.dunwoody.edu/content/Image/Diversity/Diversity_Hands.gif

What is Social Studies?

When looking over the SCOS for third grade social studies I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's only focus wasn't middle class American communities.

After reading the SCOS I'm excited about teaching social studies in the early grades. A few of the objectives focus on the evolutions that different societies and communities have gone through, others focus on an individuals role in their society and how they can positively or negatively effect it, and, what I see as one of the most important schools can do for children, to talk about differences in communities, embracing their differences, and going even farther to understand and celebrate them.

When reading each objective, even more so for each broad goal, I was already attempting to come up with interactive and meaningful lessons for each. Goal 6 (especially objective 6.03) seems like a great opportunity to teach students about the concept of miniloans. As a class we could have a bake sale, car wash, or any other fundraiser and put what we make towards a mini-loan for some family, and, if we are working with the right agency, over the school year we could see what they are doing with it and how they've managed.

photo credit: http://members.shaw.ca/tzeglen/

My number one goal as a teacher will be for my students to, not just learn, but to enjoy learning. Since I plan to teach younger elementary grades, I think that introducing technology will be an important part of the curriculum and should be integrated into as many lessons as possible. As I've seen in my fieldwork, I think an amazing way to use technology as a group in everyday activities is the Promethean board. Working much like a touch screen, it lets students write on the board itself or on the adjoining board (which works much like an over head projector) but with the added bonus of color, pictures, animation and search engines at your finger tips. So far in my class we have used it mostly for math activities, but we've also done a few online grammar games, poetry, and some of the coolest power point presentations I've ever seen.

When I was younger I used an alphasmart board to take notes on because typing let me focus more on the information I was hearing about and less on making sure my handwriting would be legible later. At this point in time, it seems like laptops are more readily available and maybe even more affordable, but in some way I want all of my students (especially those with physical disabilities) to be able to practice tying and just generally familiarizing them self with the basics of a computer.