How can we transform cultural diversity into valuable resources at home?
At first Lilian introduced us to the programme of the day and told us what we will do in this challenge.
Task 1:
Then we were asked to work in groups on this document:
Me and my group said, that the 3 monkeys with short legs and long arms are totally different in comparison to the monkey with long legs and really short arms. We supposed that it doesn't belong to the group because of these differences.
Then we had to go to different groups and discuss our ideas and observations to compare the group results and suggestions.
Task 2:
Afterwards we went outside and we were asked to line up for the next activity. Lilian asked us some questions and we were expected to take a step forth or back according to our situation.
This activity showed us how different everybody and his background is.
Task 3:
The next activity had to be done in our original groups. We were asked to find activities that could be used in a classroom to show diversity.
We focussed on terms, such as:
- music, songs from different countries, e.g. traditional music from Turkey
- food, asking the students to bring a traditional mealfrom their country to the next lesson
- pictures, use of pictures showing the students' countries
Task 4:
Later we watched the short movie "The New Boy". The film is about an African boy moving to a different country, school and system. Throughout the film are scenes from his old school shown, so that we were able to compare.
Lilian asked us, what this film has to do with diversity and we had to discuss this question in our groups.
Me and my group talked about his different background and the different school systems.
We also talked about the differences among his old school in Africa and the new school in İreland.
İ emphasized the differences among the attitude of the new teacher and the old teacher in Africa towards the students.
We talked in detail about the differences of the physical environment of the classrooms in both societies and the impact of these diffrences on the students.
We also talked about the teacher's behaviour and how she introduced the new boy to the other students and we concluded that she could have introduced him better. The boy was treated like everybody else, what was in my opinion a good decision.
İ found it dissapointing that he had not the chance to talk about himself and that he was just asked to take a seat. The whole process was just too short!
Task 5:
After we discussed our ideas with the others Lilian handed out "Bank's Levels of İntegration" and the "Convention on the Rights of the Child".
Afterwards we watched a film about "identity classroom practices" and we were asked to answer some questions.
We talked in our group about the documentary and concentrated on "prejudice reduction".
Talk 6:
The final task was an activity in which we were divided into 2 groups. We received 15 pictures and we had to agree on an order. The task was to agree on the order of the pictures and to present the product to the other group. Each person had to talk about his picture in his own language.
İ experienced in this activity that my voice and body language changed as i talked about my picture in Turkish.
İ learned in this challenge that İ have to establish multicultural learning environments and that İ have to use teaching methods which are designed for multicultural learning environments considering the diversity among the students.
İ have seen in this challenge that İ have to appreciate the differences among students when İ am teaching. İ will try to remember these concepts when İ will be responsible of a 6th grade on Monday.
