EDU101Chapter6

1. Read chapter 6 in //The Joy of Teaching//.

2. Additionally, watch or listen to this [|18-minute video], "Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story.” [The TED Talks describe her presentation: “Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.”]. You can download it to your MP3 player (they have an audio-only version if that's better for you).

3. Bullying, harassment and intolerance are happening in schools and out of schools (online, in gangs, etc.). How will you help students in your classroom handle this? How will you respond if students in your class (or within your hearing or sight) are doing any of these?

Pick a group from the chapter (students of a certain race, socio-economic status, physical stature, sexual orientation, social group, gender, etc.) that might be the target of such abuse and develop a plan for confronting it in your classroom. It might be a lesson or an activity to prevent it, to address it pro-actively, to handle a situation that might arise, etc. It might be your set of classroom policies that you plan to implement. You do not have to create this plan from scratch. Feel free to find existing plans from other places and share that, just be sure to give credit. Likewise, if you experienced a great approach to anti-bullying in your school or have heard of one, feel free to share that and make it your own, just be sure to give credit to the source.

Resources are listed on p. 256 of //The Joy of Teaching//.

You will share your plan with the class. It can be in any format that you would like. You'll have a maximum of 4 minutes to share it with us. You can give us handouts, put together a skit, make a brochure, make a movie, create a PowerPoint, show us a poster, pass something around, wear a special t-shirt,. . . whatever you think will best explain your plan to the rest of us. If you want copies to hand out and can get the original to me 24 hours before class, I can make copies for you. But don't feel compelled to kill a tree.

Create some kind of "digital artifact" that represents your plan. This means you need something "extra" besides text in a blog entry. It could be a photo, a screen shot, a graphic, a movie, an audio recording, a PowerPoint, a Word document,. . . Some presentations may be hard to capture digitally than others, but get creative. You can do it. If you do a skit, take a picture of the cast or one of the props. If you make a brochure using software, your file will be a digital artifact, if it's not made with software, you can scan it. Some artifacts may not upload to your blog, but there are other ways to make them digital and then you can put the link [convert a Word document or PowerPoint to a Google Doc or Google Presentation, PowerPoints can be uploaded to SlideShare. Write a one-sentence introduction to the artifact. (e.g., "I created a brochure that is an example of what I hope my students would create as part of the class activity that I want to do with my students to raise awareness of the diversity in each of us.")

This is a very different assignment. Start early and feel free to email me if you have questions or technical difficulties.


 * Posting Title:** Chapter 6: Social Context of Schools
 * Content Points:** 5
 * Label:** Joy of Teaching
 * Bedford Focus:**
 * Everything we've done before
 * Anything else that might be a strong communication tool for your plan