Thursday, February 21, 2008
Chapter 9
I had to read this chapter over several times because some of the concepts were new to me, and honestly some of them made me a little uncomfortable. Some of the children’s art DID indeed seem somewhat stereotyping. I found both Rosie’s and Joe’s comments very articulate and perceptive and my thoughts feel very clunky in comparison. I haven’t had any actual experience teaching kids social studies in conjunction with art , so maybe that is why I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around some of the issues addressed in this chapter. Really most of it seems like common sense but I am wrestling with the idea Rosie brought up about “How do you help students understand some basic tenants of a culture AND simultaneously free up the cultural boundaries? “. I think perhaps kids learn best about other cultures by having friends who belong to other cultural backgrounds. But I’m not sure how that observation relates to teaching in a group setting. A teacher has little control over the diversity of their classroom. This chapter did have many great ideas for projects- that for me might have been the most helpful part of it. Also- I’m curious to hear more about Rosie’s multicultural research.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I agree, kids learn best about and become tolerant of other cultures when they have friends with different cultural backgrounds. The question is, how can you foster the likelihood of that connection? A teacher's ability to do that is limited but it starts with group work, and pre-planning who will work together each time to keep mixing things up. However, students are still going to gravitate towards other students who are more like them in various aspects of their lives culturally, socio-economically, musically, etc. I will be more than happy to share some of my multicultural research with everyone sometime. I am still working on it, but perhaps after spring break I will have something to share.
-Rosie
Post a Comment