To bounce off of the Irvine article we read for class this evening, I've decided to speak about a few of my own experiences as a student. I've chosen to talk about the exercises/projects/lessons that stuck with me over the years, to emphasize how important it is to understand your students throughout the course of each academic year. To start, an appreciation for the fine and performing arts, and the humanities seems to be a common thread among the classmates I grew up with. Therefore, many of the activities my teachers chose to embark upon relied heavily on those two fields. In subjects like math, the occasional sports analogy was of course prevalent as well.
My senior year of high school I took Humanities. This class had such a wide array of lessons to be taught, and my teacher truly did a fabulous job trying to create appropriate strategies. As a class about the humanities, being taught in the modern day, one must find ways to compare the past to the present (for english, history, and mythology). I can recall two lessons focused on creativity, and understanding of existentialism, that are just two of many to stick with me that year. In our unit on Hamlet, Mr. Hock had us create a Hamlet Soundtrack CD, based upon our musical knowledge and our understanding of the book. Each scene required a song change. Points were lost for irrelevant song choices that had nothing to do with the material. Before the unit began we were asked to explain ourselves via song, which essentially meant that we were to bring in a song that truly speaks to us and be able to explain why its currently relevant to our life. Our final paper on Hamlet brought back rather amazing results, so I would say it was rather successful. The final project in the class revolved around existentialist thought and theory, which can be difficult to truly define. For these units we read the books Waiting for Godot, The Stranger, and No Exit. To finalize the unit, he has us work in groups to create an existentialist piece of film. The final grades for this exam were given to us by means of a red carpet awards show (in the classroom on the last day of class). If a film did not portray and of the key elements he'd asked for, the given group would win an award named after a director that typically shared the same end result, etc. We were able to learn the content that was required while having the chance to have fun and express ourselves. If I attempted to sit here and list the number of success stories this teacher had I'd never the time to complete the MAT program!
Math was never my strongpoint, and it truly took a lot of effort to get concepts across to me. My father, is a math teacher, and tried his hardest to help me whenever possible. When I was learning about finding X in Geometry, he tried to find something that would stick. I am Jewish, a Religion filled with culture, food, and holidays. My next door neighbor and I would make hamentaschen every year (triangular cookies with jelly, or chocolate filling) around Purim (Holiday in March), and my family would wait in anticipation for them. My father decided to try something out. He grabbed one of these triangular cookies and told me to grab a couple of chocolate chips, a notebook, and a pencil. He then proceeded to use these tool to teach me how to find X on a triangle. I learned the concept, I passed my quiz, and I made a batch of cookies!
Culturally relevant can also refer to a given class's hobbies and interests. As a student I can promise you that the only lessons I remember are the ones that stood out as an attempt to better understand myself and my classmates. In other words, I remember the ones that achieved positive results. For example, in my 6th grade social studies class, my teacher noted that we were all quite creative, and gave us a project that involved quite a bit of creativity. She had us each pick one of the 7 wonders of the world (at the time), and creative a 3D model of it. There were guidelines that told us what materials we were able to use, dimensions, and items to be included. For my project, I built a 3-dimensional model of the hanging gardens of babylon. While I certainly did not have access to the materials used to create the original, my teacher gave me a list of materials that would best show the comparison when building. I didn't throw my model out until began to pack for college. I just remember how proud we all were of our accomplishments, and how well we all did on the unit test. As I've mentioned, these are but a few of my experiences. I may even choose to bounce off of some of them in my own practice. These experiences are simply to be the foundation for creating culturally relevant classroom activities.
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