Monday, January 19, 2009
A Tribute...
I have been thinking a lot over the past couple weeks about the fighting over civil rights. It all started about two weeks ago when we were talking about courage in our classroom and emphasized the great things that Martin Luther King Jr. did during his life. Since then, I have found myself repeatedly thinking about what a different world we live in because of what civil rights activists fought for. I feel like it is on my mind more because of the classroom that I have. In my room, we have about 6 caucasians, 3 african americans, and about 18 latins. Looking at these dynamics make our room so interesting, and these kids have so much to learn from each other. I feel like the exposure to different demographics, characteristics, backgrounds, and races make these kids more accepting of people and cultures. We had a discussion the other day about what our classroom would have been like even sixty years ago. The kids came to the conclusion that they would never have been allowed to be in the same classroom. Many of them expressed concern because they have friends who are of a different race. They expressed frustration about fairness and equality. It was amazing to see them thinking about the reality of these situations. I just wanted to send out a tribute, since it is Martin Luther King Jr. day, to all the people who fought for integration, desegregation, and love. Thank you for your strength to change our world. We can change things if our hearts and minds are unmoveable.
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1 comment:
hey girly.
good thoughts here.
your kids sound like they have some depth and real understanding of it-- great job in teaching and in letting them really relate!
makes me think of something we did at JBU in a cross cultural class (not saying that this is age appropriate for you kiddos- but wanted to share the concept- and i did this with the middle schoolers at AA during impact once-- powerful)
one day we came to class and our prof had put all of the kids with brown eyes in the front seats. all of the kids with blue in the back and green/hazel were in the middle.
for that day- he only called on students with brown eyes. only they could use the restroom, have priviledges and he basically ignored the blue eyed students.
the kids (us JBUers and the middle schoolers both) caught on after about an hour and began to treat the blue eyed students poorly also. they didn't really know the difference - didn't catch on to the eye color thing- but treated the others poorly just cuz taht is what they say. by the end of the hour, the blue eyed students were dejected and stopped trying to care about the class and subject- what was the point? they were obviously not worth much so why bother?
the next day- our prof switched. putting the blue eyes int eh front and the brown eyes int eh back.....
this time the blue eyed were honored and respected andt he brown eyed- ignored.
third day- we/they all wrote papers about it HOW we felt during each day.
why our own self worth dropped just because we were being ignored, or built thru being nhonored.
we talked about our friendship with those that "didn't fit with us" an dhow that was affected.
it was great.
maybe you could do a miny version - 10 minutes for each or something and talk about it? or morf it somehow to be age appropriate... or divide them based on what kind of shoes they are wearing or if their bday was before May vs. after or something. =)
anyways- just wanted to share.
love ya!
miss ya!
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