Challenge 7: How can we transform cultural diversity into valuable resources at home?
1) Introduction of the program.
2) Talk about the cartoon:
We got a cartoon with a blank textballoon. Our job was to discuss the cartoon and fill in
the textballoon. We saw that there were 2 kind of groups on the cartoon. You had the majority- group
of monkeys with lang arms and then you had one minority group of a monkey with long legs. We
directly thought of the evolution of animals. We filled the textballoon with the following text: " Oh
f*** guys! Evolution!"
After this, we were asked to quickly form another group with other students. We had to discuss the
different texts of each group and get "some ideas". We've heard a couple of good texts but the
following was definitley my favourite: "He has long legs and we have long arms, if we sit on his
shoulders we can get tot the bananas!" In the end we got to know the "original" text:" Oh, George
we tried to acceot you in our group but you are just too different!"
This cartoon is actually referring to the diversity of a group of persons. When you're new to a certain
kind of group, you'll be automatically be drawn to the kind of people you know, so if you have a
minority group of persons, they will always sit all by theirselves. If there's a lot of diversity in the
class, it's the teacher's task to mix up the class so that everyone is included!
3) Visualize diversity:
We had to stand on one line in the middle of the hall. The teacher told us a couple of statements and
if you agreed with the statement, you took one small step forward. If you didn't agree with the
statement, you had to take one small step back. After a couple of statements, our teacher stopped
the activity and she told us to look around and tell her, what we saw. We concluded that everyone
was scattered around the hall, instead of being on one line. This was an activity to visualize the
diversity.
When we got back in the class, it was our task to discuss about didactic ways to confront the pupils
with the diversity in the class. How could we confront the kids with the diversity of the class? We
had a couple of minutes to discuss and then we talked about it with the other classmates. We've
found the following didactic ways:
- Create a cultural evening
- Play foreing games that are being played in other cultures, games that we're not used to play.
- Telling fairytales from other cultures
- Start a safe discussion about a couple of statements
- Watch cartoons and movies from other cultures
- Interact with other foreign schools: Let the kids send e- mails
- Start up a whole cultural project with a couple of other classes
- Erasmus or exchanging students
- Take a walk in the citylife, to see the diversity in the city
- Picture comparison between different cultures
- Statementgames to visualize diversity
- Make a cultural bag: Kids walk around in the class, they grab something out of there bags and they
start to talk about this " culture part" and afterwards they trade there goods. At the end of the
lessons, they tell something what they found very interesting
- Make a classreport about their own culture
For us, the most important didactic way to let the kids be confronted with the diversity between
cultures, is definitley " creating a cultural evening". You can organise an event with the whole
school. The school can invite the parents of the children, so that they also can experience this
diversity, but not only experience the diversity but "teach" other parents and kids something more
about their own culture. Each parent can go to a certain group of pupils with the same culture and
then they can cook something, play games, tell stories, ... that is something common to their culture.
Parents and their pupils can learn a lot by just participating in this event. Thanks to this event, we
can say that their identity and belongings are included. Their own background and their identity are
in the center of the attention along side other cultures.
As a teacher, it's about making sure that everyone is included and not excluded. The pupils have to
learn to work with pupils from other cultures. This working relation has to be optimal in the learning
environment so that they can create a "bond" between the classmembers. It's an important task for
the teacher to make a possible and a good working environment for the whole class. You have to
deal with the whole diversity, and try to not only speak about the " differences" but also about the "
common" things between the cultures. It's okay to be different!
4) Film: the new boy
We saw a movie about a kid who's new at an Irish class. We had to watch the movie and see
if we could answer the following questions: How does diversity plays a role in this movie?,
What does the teacher do, to implement the new kid? and What was the teacher supposed to
do?
How does diversity plays a role?
We have different kind of " diversity"- roles:
- The Irish pupils are treating him differently based on his skincolour but also because he's new at the school. There are only 2 dark- coloured pupils in the white- coloured class.
- The film shows the viewer a couple of flashbacks. One of the flashbacks go back to the " mathematic"- course in his homecountry. The didactics of the mathematic course in his country is different than the didactics of the mathematics of Ireland.
- Another role of Diversity is the background of each kid in the classroom. Each kid has their own background, and it's because of that background that they'll react in a different way on a certain situation.
- There is also no mutual respect: In his country, the kids had respect for the teacher but the kids in the Irish class have nothing of respect towards the teacher and towards each other.
- There are also different types of kids in the classroom, you have the "nerd", the " snitch", ...
- How the kids interact with each other and how the teacher interacts with the kids of the classroom ( The teacher pulled a kid towards the blackboard...)
What does the teacher do, to implement the new kid?
First of all, she puts the kid in the middle of the attention in a bad way. The kids were making too much noise, so the teacher says to the kids, they have to raise their hand to be silenced. The new kid also does this, because he wants to adapt to the environment. The teacher says to him: " No, you don't have to do this..." By saying this, he's been put into the center of the attention which influence the kids negatively.
The teacher doesn't give a good introduction. She just tries to implement him as fast as possible in their system. She's showing him the ropes directly, he doesn't get the chance to adapt at his own rate.
What was the teacher supposed to do?
If she would have introduced him better, they could have gotten a better impression of the new kid. The best way to introduce someone new, is to let the new kid tell about his culture and about his life before he's thrown into a whole new class. Let the new kid talk about himself and give the children the chance to ask questions.
Organise games or activities, so it would be easier for the new student to make some contacts with the rest of the classmates. It would be a more fun and relaxed way to introduce the new kid to the class.
The teacher has to make sure that she prepares the class about the new kid. The kids will react more friendly towards the new kid because they knew that he was coming. The teacher also has to prepare her better, she has to try to get to know a lot of information about the new student, so that she can adapt to the new kid. She'll react better on different situations because she knows the kid's background.
Try to give roles to a couple of pupuls. Roles like a class buddy, who will help him to adapt to the new learning environment, another role can be " a guide" who will show him around, ... This will make sure that the kids won't leave the kid behind.
5) Banks levels of integration: based on the reality in the class.
There are different levels of integration:
- Contribution approach: include things from other groups
- Additive approach : a little more advanced
- The transformation approach: develop the curriculum around the children
- The social action approach: empower the children to take action
We watched a movie about an EAL school...
Comments!
=> The school doors are open for the parents. Parents can learn English with their kids.
=> The school offers bilingual books, which helps the kids to develop their languages
=> They use the language of the kids as a research
=> Thanks to a lot of different roleplayings, kids are making bilangual conversations with other kids
=> As a teacher, you have to accept the different languages, you have to get used to this
=> Visual support is very important!
=> Integration of parents in Belgian schools: Reading moms
6) Story telling in your own language
We were divided in 2 groups and each group has their own pile of " images". It was up to us, to
form a story around the pictures. If everyone has made up a story, we had to present this
towards the other group. Each person told us something about their story, but in their own
language.
Facial expression is very important in this activity because it gives us a hint what they are
talking about. When persons change their language, everything else changes with them like
their voice, expressions, ...
The story telling in different languages...
( link if the application doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04FtspGxg60à
( link if the application doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04FtspGxg60à
After the movie we had to discuss check list that we chose: Prejudice reduction...
1. Is the classroom( materials, books) free of cultural stereotypes?
=> There are no stereotypes, the books are in different languages, no actual differences because everybody's flag was in one room.
2. When they occur, are misconceptions examined and clarified?
=> We didn't see any misconceptions
3. Is the teacher proactive and not " color- blind" when situation arise?
=> This was very positive because the teacher gave attention to every culture. For example: there was this kid who had to tell something about the book he read but in Hindi, and afterwards they asked him to translate it in english.
4. Are positive attitudes toward diversity modeled and encouraged?
=> It's a very positive attitude because the kids are encouraged to respect each culture but they also ask a lot of questions about other cultures
5. Does the classroom atmosphere inspire respect and tolerance?
=> It definitley does!
Photo i'll definitley would use in my class, to make the kids think about the multicultural diversity:
This poster was made by Melanie, Katherine and me. As you can see, we used pictures to show the cultural
diversity . We would use this poster for the 4th grade, because cultural diversity isn't an easy subject to talk
about with young pupils. This poster shows a lot of differences between cultures like clothes, food, music, ...
I'm sure that pupils would love to talk about other cultures.
Reflection:
It was fun to see the cartoon in different " perspectives", the class was very original! In this lesson, i
learned a lot about " visualizing diversity". The teacher had good didactic ways that i as a teacher in
primary school can use. In Belgium a lot of classes are turning multicultural and the pupils don't
know a lot about the other cultures. They just stick with the knowledge of their own culture so we
can use those activities, to make the children aware of the other cultures. Some activities can even
"invite" the parents like the " international evening". The movie was also a good example of a
realistic situation. Being "the new kid" in a class, isn't very easy. You have to adapt directly and you
have to make new friends. It's like starting all over again and the kid has to be helped with this. The
teacher has to motivate the kids to let them help the new kid, integrate in this "new world". I found
the activity with the story very fun, and it's definitley something that i will use in my belgian class
in the future.
