So much for keeping up on our school activites on the blog…. Well, I didnt think the world wanted to hear that we’ve gotten to book 10 in Hooked on Phonics and she’s learned to skip count by 2’s without any intervention from me.
We’d been working on Masako Matsuno’s “A Pair of Red Clogs” for our Five in A Row unit. We located Japan on the world map and colored in a Japanese flag. We talked about storytelling using flashbacks and Claire dictated a story to me then illustrated it, and we covered some vocabulary from the book (I think we covered this…something about thongs rings a bell!). For the art lesson, we practiced shading with color pencils then for our best project so far, we did Japanese fish printing called gyotaku using a whole red snapper. Of course, Claire’s favorite part was that you could still see the eye in the print. I think they turned out great considering we only used tempera paint. Now we’re moving on to Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton.
We’ve also started doing a unit on African-American history. It has been difficult. Not that she isnt interested, but she had no concept of African-American! I had to start with that. And this from a child who went to public pre-K in Georgia with 2 African-American teachers and 50% of her classmates were African-American. I should have known…once, when she was in pre-K, she was telling a story about one of her teachers. At that time, the lead teacher was a slightly heavyAfrican-American and the other was an older, thin, blonde, while woman. When I asked Claire which teacher she was talking about, she said “the one with yellow hair.” No other description. Proof that racism is taught. Anyway, I had to use examples from our life. We had to go through our family and all our friends. Then we talked about tribes in Africa, slavery, the Middle Passage, and Underground Railroad. Now we are working on some individuals using books and movies: Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. We have a couple of field trips planned, a class, and I’ll tackle a few more individuals.
3 Comments
February 19, 2008 at 11:01 pm
The skip counting by 2 story is fabulous! Proof that people do not give their kids enough credit. I think the world would love to hear that story.
Hmmm the class. So very tempting. I may have to ride your coat tails.
February 21, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Without a doubt, racism is taught. And, education does help eradicate the ignorance.
February 27, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I have to recant on my original thoughts….or at least clarify. Racism is taught but not always by the parents. Personal experiences also teach us.
The reason I say this is that Rachel has recently made two comments from her own observations. The first she said a few days ago when we were at the Macon mall. There was an African-American male sitting in the middle playing some music that he was trying to sell. The music was what I’d call the “doctor’s office” type….very soothing. But, it was very loud. Rachel asked, “Why do brown (this is what she calls African-Americans) people always listen to their music so loud? Their music is always so loud in the cars too.” Then, this morning, on the way to school, we were listening to the song “Lean on Me.” You know, the more retro version that I think came out in the 80s or early 90s. Anyway, Rachel asked me “if the singer was brown?” I asked why she thought that? She said, “he sounds like a brown person.” Her comments were all in innocence as we have certainly never pointed out such things. I found it interesting that a child so young had observed this and made these connections. I tried to explain to her that not all “brown” people listen to their music loudly. And, not all “brown” people talk with a distinct dialect. I guess what I’m saying is that stereotypes and such are not always necessarily taught by parents who are racist. Unfortunately, some times, we (all groups) bring such views on ourselves by our own actions.