An Integrated Approach: Reflection
As part of our social studies class, we created a lesson that integrated social studies, drama, and language arts and attempted to teach children about different perspectives involved in historical events. We chose the residential schools and framed the lesson as if Martians had moved to earth, and each student was given a character to play (whether it was a Martian or an Earthling) as well as a situation they had to resolve and present dramatically. I will explain further in a later post, but the results of the lesson on my peers at Brock was fantastic.
Before I get into detail about what happened during the run-through, tough, I need to discuss some of the challenges of creating this lesson. For starters, it took us a while to come up with an idea that really hit home the concept we were trying to get at. We started by facilitating a privilege walk where every student moved forward/backward based on their profile, but we decided it wasn't pointed enough and it didn't really get the message across we were going for. The second major issue when discussing any FNMI issue is sensitivity. We wanted to teach the students about a historical event, but while doing that we didn't want to offend anyone or make any assumptions. We took two approaches to ensure we were as sensitive as possible. First, we found a document that contains stories from residential school survivors and outlined the exact issues and differences between euro-Canadian approaches to living and FNMI approaches. We based our Earthling profiles on these accounts. The second way we avoided sensitivity issues, is we didn't try to tell the FNMI story. Instead, we gave students background knowledge about what happened, and the next step would be to take them to an FNMI cultural centre in order to hear first hand the story of what happened.
When it came time to practice the lesson on our peers it went wonderfully. There were two groups in particular who's comments and observation really addressed what we were trying to teach. The first was a group's dramatic presentation of what it would look like for the Earthling children being taken away by Martians in order to learn the Martian language. They chose to use no words, and instead showed the emotion silently while the Martians mumbled along. After the Earthling child came home for the summer, she could only mumble to her mother who wept. It was an incredible performance, and I wish we'd filmed it! The second comment that was wonderful to hear, was a student (who's character was a Martian Official) who said he completely agreed with his profile, and didn't see anything wrong with taking Earthling children since his culture was clearly superior, but after hearing the perspectives of other group members he realized how skewed his perspective really was.
This lesson really got me excited to get back in a classroom and plan these types of activities. However, I'm worried since this activity took 4 people a full week to figure out. Hopefully, once I get more practice I will be able to 'whip' lessons like these out much more easily.
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| Walker, Amanda (2016). |
Before I get into detail about what happened during the run-through, tough, I need to discuss some of the challenges of creating this lesson. For starters, it took us a while to come up with an idea that really hit home the concept we were trying to get at. We started by facilitating a privilege walk where every student moved forward/backward based on their profile, but we decided it wasn't pointed enough and it didn't really get the message across we were going for. The second major issue when discussing any FNMI issue is sensitivity. We wanted to teach the students about a historical event, but while doing that we didn't want to offend anyone or make any assumptions. We took two approaches to ensure we were as sensitive as possible. First, we found a document that contains stories from residential school survivors and outlined the exact issues and differences between euro-Canadian approaches to living and FNMI approaches. We based our Earthling profiles on these accounts. The second way we avoided sensitivity issues, is we didn't try to tell the FNMI story. Instead, we gave students background knowledge about what happened, and the next step would be to take them to an FNMI cultural centre in order to hear first hand the story of what happened.
When it came time to practice the lesson on our peers it went wonderfully. There were two groups in particular who's comments and observation really addressed what we were trying to teach. The first was a group's dramatic presentation of what it would look like for the Earthling children being taken away by Martians in order to learn the Martian language. They chose to use no words, and instead showed the emotion silently while the Martians mumbled along. After the Earthling child came home for the summer, she could only mumble to her mother who wept. It was an incredible performance, and I wish we'd filmed it! The second comment that was wonderful to hear, was a student (who's character was a Martian Official) who said he completely agreed with his profile, and didn't see anything wrong with taking Earthling children since his culture was clearly superior, but after hearing the perspectives of other group members he realized how skewed his perspective really was.
This lesson really got me excited to get back in a classroom and plan these types of activities. However, I'm worried since this activity took 4 people a full week to figure out. Hopefully, once I get more practice I will be able to 'whip' lessons like these out much more easily.
This was a fantastic activity and could act as both a provocation (at the start of a lesson) or as the lesson itself, depending on which direction you take . In our class, it was evident that it got people really thinking and talking about the issue. And the strategy could be connected to so many different points in history. Thank you for sharing this lesson to the world. I guarantee that others will appreciate it!
ReplyDeleteYour blog looks fantastic by the way. THIS IS WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. You are professional, articulate and have a strong sense of media literacy. This is what you can use as not only a model for your own students but as an e-portfolio. This blog is like a resume of your learning. YOU ROCK.