In "Becoming American", i had the chance to listen to some remarkable stories of how some famous children's family members made it to America. I could not believe it when i heard that between the years of 1820 and 1930, more than 36 million immigrants migrated to America. That is a lot of people moving to one country to look for better opportunities for not only themselves, but their families as well.
For example. Meryl Streep had ancestors that migrated to Newark in 1869. Her story was unimaginable. One of her ancestors had ten children with his wife. He decided to take four of the boys to Newark and leave behind six of the other children and his wife. I cannot fathom how hard that must have been to part from family. Stephen Colbert's ancestors came from Ireland.
I found it amazing how some of these famous children's ancestors could be tracked down to all the way from where they came from originally, what they looked like, and their age they migrated over to America.
My ancestors migrated from Germany to the United States. In fact, they migrated to Brooklyn. On my father's side of the family, his grandmother and grandfather came over on a boat to America and started a family in Brooklyn. That is where my grandfather was born. Then my grandfather moved to Long Island and started a family of his own in West Hempstead.
I always find it so interesting to find out where people originated from. Being able to track family members that far back is something i find to be amazing.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
A Class Divided
I found the video of " A Class Divided" to be very interesting, in fact, intriguing. For a teacher to come up with the plan to divide her students into two groups based on their eye color was magnificent. You could immediately see the student's point of views of their peers change. First, the teacher told the students that blue eyed people were smarter than the brown eyed people. The teacher told the students that whoever had brown eyes were better than whoever had blue eyes. She did this to show an example of segregation. She even went as far as to say that the blue eyed students could not play on the playground during recess and the brown eyed students had a few extra minutes. I found it interesting when one student said he felt like it was a good time to get all of his angst out against friends that he couldn't do before, just because of their eye color.
I think that the teacher was right to carry out this experiment because it broke the idea of segregation down to a level that young students could understand. It was a different way of learning for the students, which i think made it more interesting for them, and helped them understand the idea of segregation better.
I think this experiment would be great to carry out in a classroom because it really opens up the eyes of the students. I have heard of similar experiments based upon clothing color or even hair color. I think these are all good ideas and give the students a new way to learn, while having a little bit of fun as well. Of course, the teachers had to get the permission of the parents before carrying out these experiments.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Week Two - Multicultural Manners, Body Language, and Expression
Multicultural Manners
The role of education differs depending on the economic standing of the students. Sometimes survival comes first, and as a teacher this may be hard to understand at times. If I find that a student is coming to class with homework incomplete, i need to take a step back and look at his or her social and economic background and see if i can work something out, like extra help or time to do homework in school. I have experienced the case of a passing of a family member with one of my students, and she was gone for a whole month of school because she had to fly to her home country to be with her family. Family was more important than her education. She fell far behind in her school work, which caused a toll on her grades and academic standing.
Manners And Body Language Across Cultures
Body language is more likely than verbal communication to be misinterpreted across the culture. I learned about this in my undergraduate courses. Sometimes when a student is asked to make eye contact, it is a sign of disrespect in his or her culture, so they fail to do so, which to us is a sign of disrespect.
In Vietnam, when crossing your arms, it is considered to be a sign of respect, showing that you are giving your full attention to the speaker, while here, we may think of it as being a sign of disrespect and resistance to what is being discussed.
I was surprised to find out that a smile means different things in different cultures. If Koreans smiled, it was a sign of how serious a matter was. We smile when we are happy. I also found it interesting to learn that we look when we are listening, and look away when we are talking where in the African American culture, it is the complete opposite.
Manners And Verbal Expressions Across Cultures
I learned that it is better not to call people by their first names unless you know them quite well. Professionally, this is something that I abide by, however. When complementing or praising people of different cultures, i must be careful because it could change the social dynamics among peers. Complimenting could also cause tension among Asian cultures. They may think that they were not doing something well before they were being complemented, making them feel worse.
I learned to change my style of asking questions as well. I may need to phrase my questions in another way such as "Tell me what you don't understand, What confuses you?" Instead of ," Does everyone understand?" I learned that people will say yes because it is what they think you want to hear, and saying no would mean that i would not be a good teacher and that would be demeaning.
The role of education differs depending on the economic standing of the students. Sometimes survival comes first, and as a teacher this may be hard to understand at times. If I find that a student is coming to class with homework incomplete, i need to take a step back and look at his or her social and economic background and see if i can work something out, like extra help or time to do homework in school. I have experienced the case of a passing of a family member with one of my students, and she was gone for a whole month of school because she had to fly to her home country to be with her family. Family was more important than her education. She fell far behind in her school work, which caused a toll on her grades and academic standing.
Manners And Body Language Across Cultures
Body language is more likely than verbal communication to be misinterpreted across the culture. I learned about this in my undergraduate courses. Sometimes when a student is asked to make eye contact, it is a sign of disrespect in his or her culture, so they fail to do so, which to us is a sign of disrespect.
In Vietnam, when crossing your arms, it is considered to be a sign of respect, showing that you are giving your full attention to the speaker, while here, we may think of it as being a sign of disrespect and resistance to what is being discussed.
I was surprised to find out that a smile means different things in different cultures. If Koreans smiled, it was a sign of how serious a matter was. We smile when we are happy. I also found it interesting to learn that we look when we are listening, and look away when we are talking where in the African American culture, it is the complete opposite.
Manners And Verbal Expressions Across Cultures
I learned that it is better not to call people by their first names unless you know them quite well. Professionally, this is something that I abide by, however. When complementing or praising people of different cultures, i must be careful because it could change the social dynamics among peers. Complimenting could also cause tension among Asian cultures. They may think that they were not doing something well before they were being complemented, making them feel worse.
I learned to change my style of asking questions as well. I may need to phrase my questions in another way such as "Tell me what you don't understand, What confuses you?" Instead of ," Does everyone understand?" I learned that people will say yes because it is what they think you want to hear, and saying no would mean that i would not be a good teacher and that would be demeaning.
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