The goal: We are more the same than different...
In grade 3 in Alberta we have to teach about Global Citizenship. In particular we generally compare Peru, India, Ukraine, Tunisia, and our own country, Canada. I wanted to be very careful that our students realize that in the end, we are all people, even if we have different environments!
Snutt the Ift
We first read the book Snutt the Ift. It comes from the same publisher (Little Pickle Press) as "What does it mean to be Global?" another great book for this unit. The book Snutt the Ift is all about an explorer who goes to a far away planet that is absolutely wonderful! There he becomes lonely because he has no one to share his discoveries with... but then he meets a Waft. The Ift and the Waft explore together in slightly different but highly similar ways. It is a super cute book and the kids loved it and totally got the message.
Showing the Photo Essays
Recently a bunch of photo essays came out comparing situations in different countries. One was the typical groceries for a week, the next was a typical classroom, and one was where children sleep. I first took the classroom ones, put them on chart paper and students had to list the things they found similar and different to our own classroom. We discuss first that all of these were just examples, and just like how no two classrooms in our school are the same, no two classrooms in a whole country will be the same either.
A couple things to notice (other than our problems with spelling! I offered no help because I wanted them to focus on their ideas rather than their spelling):
- The noticed the basic environments were usually the same: desks, windows, roofs, etc
- They were very jealous about the kids who got to wear "Hats" in school
- They were surprised by the homogeneous looking classrooms. We are at a school that is all Aboriginal/Indigenous people to Canada, but due to a variety of factors the students may look very dark or very light. They can be pretty diverse looking, so they were surprised by classes that weren't.
- They liked the "Fancy" Japanese and Russian classes where children sit properly, wear bows and wear ties!
- The noticed the basic environments were usually the same: desks, windows, roofs, etc
- They were very jealous about the kids who got to wear "Hats" in school
- They were surprised by the homogeneous looking classrooms. We are at a school that is all Aboriginal/Indigenous people to Canada, but due to a variety of factors the students may look very dark or very light. They can be pretty diverse looking, so they were surprised by classes that weren't.
- They liked the "Fancy" Japanese and Russian classes where children sit properly, wear bows and wear ties!
Outcome
Even though most students had more "Different" than the same, they put a sincere effort into finding similarities. So much so that I am confident that in a real life situation they would try to do the same!