13 February 2008
A Good Teacher is Culturally Responsible
I meant to discuss this topic more during my presentation. A great way to have a culturally aware classroom is to invite parents to come in and share their culture, customs, and traditions. They can read a book, tell personal stories, wear related clothing, show special trinkets, have a food testing, or even do a craft or play a game that pertains to that culture. My son's kindergarten class was fortunate to have a different parent presenter every month. He loved it, and he can speak (at the age of 7) more fluently about certain customs than can many adults. These "culture shares" can be tailormade for any grade level.
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3 comments:
That is a great idea Maija. I still remember when I was in elementary school we had a Multi-Cultural day every year. Students would bring in food from their ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The teachers and parents would put on demonstrations and involve us in different activities. It was fun and educational.
This is such a great way to have students learn about different cultures!! My sister who is in sixth grade used to do these in her 4th and 5th grade classes, she would always love it because she got to talk about Peru and got to learn about other cultures. All her classmates used to bring food to the classroom and they loved to try new kinds of food.
It is a great idea. My son's kindergarten class explored different countries (England, Japan, Mexico..) and learned about the countries for a few weeks and do activities, read books etc related to those countries. Then they would invite the parents and have fiesta day or tea and they would've a presentation. Back in school I remember we used to have International Day and various different groups would bring crafts, books and food. Unfortunately though, which you future teachers will encounter very much once you start teaching, there's now a lot of restriction on food. It will depend on the school and the district but there now are a lot of different policies from class parties to birthdays because of allergies that it is hard to share other culture's food.
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