Re: Diversity exposure curriculum

Cheryl McLaughlin (mclaughl@cats1.admin.pps.pgh.pa.us)
Thu, 5 Nov 1998 15:54:30 -0500 (EST)


well, let me try again --
you wanted a curriculum for h.s. kids, and I gave you one for elem. kids,
so now, I can give you a resource (but not a curriculum) for H.S. kids --

this is not a curriculum, but it is a source for ideas for teaching --
do you knwo about the quarterly magazine, Teaching Diversity?

It is free to educators, by mail and with each issue, I always get great
ideas for lessons/projects.
last month had a project for "diversity soup" -- used soup as a cultural
medium that is common to most/many cultural groups. The leader, over the
course of some time, had students make soups that are indigenous to
specific cultures and with the making, the students studied the cultures,
the crops, the legacies of the vaious groups. Just one example of the
ideas in the magazine.
My other favorite last month was an article aobut children's names. In
many classrooms (maybe not so much in yours if you are not a diverse
school) students and teachers face each day the difficulty of pronouncing
first and last names that are not common to our ear and tongue. This
teacher advocated that we all take the time to learn how to say them
correctly and in doing so to talk with the kids and have them talk with us
about the origins of their names, both personal orignins and cultural.
The article taught ME a great lesson.

I was lucky enough to be in a school with a very diverse foreign population
about 20 years ago, long before that became more commonplace. My
principal, while always polite to the "foreign" kids, was paternalistic,
and would take it upon himself to GIVE the new kids a differnt AMERICAN
name -- they had no choice about it -- no longer was a Korean child named
Kim, he became Chuck -- etc.
He is long gone from education, but there are still folks (like me -- I'm
guilty too) of mispronouncing names that seem just too hard to practice
long enough to make them come easily to our tongues.
You can see that this publication means a lot to me.
If you want to subscribe if you don't already, I can get the address --
have it at work for you.

~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~~~~^~^~~^~^~^~^~~~^~^~~^~^~~~^~^~^~^~^~~^~~~^~^~~^Good
communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to
sleep after. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Cheryl McLaughlin..Woman/Wife/Mother/Cyberwoman/School Social Worker/etc.
http://cats1.admin.pps.pgh.pa.us/~mclaughl/welcome.htm and
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/7305/
mclaughl@cats1.admin.pps.pgh.pa.us
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~~~~^~^~~^~^~^~^~~~^~^~~^~^~~~^~^~^~^~^~~^~~~^~^~~^


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