In school it might be uncomfortable or hard to bring up difficult topics that are going on in the world. In some cases, teachers are restricted on what they can talk about which makes it difficult to have these conversations. A way that was used to talk about these issues in my school was through videos. During our history or social studies time block is when we would watch these because they related to what was going on in the world. In a video by Facing History Kevin Toro, a history teacher, used the big paper method to talk about a hard subject, the Reconstruction Era. This activity lead the students to have conversations about what was happening. Talking about issues that matter in history are just as important as talking about current day issues. Students should learn about historical issues to see how things changed or what needs to change, also just basic knowledge about events that have happened. I remember we watched a documentary on 9/11 during world history, this sparked emotions and discomfort within the class. After the documentary we had a conversation and did an activity based off of the event. For elementary aged students some videos might be too graphic but reading children's books that relate to these issues is a good way to expose them to the problems. Even dipping their toes into the pool of issues in this world, they will become more aware than they were before. As they progress through school, hopefully they will retouch on those topics and go more in-depth with them.
I have to say children books in general can be used for all ages to make fun for learning because it is usually short and has intriguing images to go with the story line. With the internet it is much easier to find books that relate to these uncomfortable and controversy topics. Thinking back to when I was in school I feel as if each year did build on the information taught to me each year because a lot of the information was for tests. One thing was for certain though each new school year built on the information provided from previous years.
ReplyDeleteI agree that children's books are a way to bring up these topics when learning in the classroom. Now days there are so many books that talk about diversity, culture and many more topics that kids need to know more about.
DeleteI cannot think off the top of my head or remember if I followed this profile on Instagram. It was a profile dedicated to specific children's books that talked about these controversy topics and feelings of growing up, such as depression.
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ReplyDeleteHi Caroline, I believe that because most of society is realizing how messed up the education system really is, that we can work together and fix it by speaking up about the problems. I think that this generation of teachers will do a better job at certain things previous teachers may have not done for example, talking about issues that matter. We have experienced ways teachers can be bias and leave out important events in history but we can learn from their mistakes and make “seeing the full picture” easier for our students and ourselves. As you stated one of the problems that I have also realized is telling one sides stories of events that occurred in history. Something that has happened more than once to me in classes is when the teacher says “you learned this in your previous class” and proceeds with the lesson but I am confused on the topic because I was never taught about it by my previous teachers. By not teaching your students about important events that occurred, you are making them miss out on learning new things and seeing different perspectives.