Shaun Nesheim

CRT

What are some of the characteristics of culturally responsive teaching? Give examples from the lessons in which you participated, witnessed, heard about during your interviews with students, or gleaned from the Elders?

The focus this week has been on CRT strategies in math and science. Even if you are not a math and science teacher, what are some ways these CRT strategies can be extrapolated to social studies, music, English, or other content areas? If you are a math or science teacher, how might you integrate other disciplines into your CRT lessons?

Some characteristics of CRT are including the local places, people, history, and linguistic uniquities of the region. From the Math Trail, we did math using the space and cultural symbols around us. In the science lab, we analyzed an indigenous form of diapers as it correlated to modern variations.

Cultural material for CRT can be used in social studies by incorporating local history and current events into the curriculum. Local music can be analyzed for meter, syncopation, dynamics, and phonics. Legends can be compared and contrasted with Western folklore in the English content area.

If I were a math or science teacher, I could incorporate other disciplines to help create a larger picture of the culture aspect the students were studying.

Update: New information

Scott Christian shared with our class a project he collaborated on with other teachers in Nikiski. The 2-month unit included various subjects using the local surroundings and people. The culmination of the unit was a booklet the students produced and printed. It appeared that the students were more involved in the work as they were in their local environs and were producing something tangible they could distribute to community members.

A fine lady named Alberta visited us and brought books! We explored some children books and thought about how we could incorporate our book into our subject area. There are myriad resources available at the Friends of the Library, as teachers can take (some) books for free!

Lesson Plan Draft; South Central Alaska; Legends and Fairy Tales

Draft Lesson Plan: South Central Alaska legends compared with Western fairy tales.

Objective: Students will be able to write a short, hybrid story/legend combining elements from already-familiar stories (e.g. fairy tales) and Alaska Native legend. Students should be able to identify the characters and values in their story and how they relate to other stories.

(15min) – (Background Knowledge) Talk about fairy tales/myths/legends/folklore students already know: note the characters involved, their traits, and the values that are presented in each story. Include sufficient wait time.

e.g.

Story Characters Traits

Cinderella	Cinderella	Good, hardworking
	Step Sisters	Cruel, lazy
	Step Mother	Cruel, unfair
Values: Karma (good things to good people, bad things to bad), and trickery is unrewarded.
Hansel and Grettle	Hansel and Grettle	Curious, disobedient
	Witch	Opportunistic
Values: Listen to your parents/elders, don’t trust strangers
Boy who cried wolf	Boy	Mischievous
	Townsfolk	Trusting, sensible, betrayed
Values: People remember one’s reputation and act accordingly.

(10min) – (New Information) Read the legend: The Woman Who Became A Bear

(15min) – Note the characters, traits, and values in the story.

e.g.

Characters Traits

Husband	Dishonest, untrustworthy
Wife	Honest, trusting, vengeful
Values: Be truthful, Reciprocity (husband gets food, wife does housework), Retribution for extreme emotions/anger, Interrelationship between nature and humans

(20min) – Students write their own story/legend incorporating elements from The Woman Who Became A Bear and another story of their choice. Incorporated elements could be characters, traits, or values.

Let me know what you think! Where is it strong? Where can I improve? What doesn’t make sense?

Photo credit.

Perusing the SLAM

Jim Schoppert made this art entitled “Still Water #2” in 1985 in the Tlingit area. What attracted my attention in this piece was how the colors and shadows by the physical carvings accentuated the piece as a whole.

If I could know, I would ask the author how he would have set up his own piece (if that wasn’t the case), as it seems that the second and fourth sections should be off-set vertically in order to line up the carvings (as I have amateurly edited this photo below). In this more off-set piece, it portrays a subtle hint of waves, which follows the title of the piece.

Big thanks to the SLAM (State Library, Archives, and Museum) for letting us explore!

Words from the Wise

What advice did you hear that resonated with you?

What implications might this have for you as a teacher?

From the Elder forum, a multitude of advise and wisdom was shared with us. One story I noted stuck with me more than the others as quite relevant to my subject matter of foreign language.

During a Celebration past, a tribe of Maori visited and performed a dance for the group, and the locals were shocked to see them sticking their tongues out at them as part of their routine. One might be offended by this if unfamiliar with the Maori culture, though this gesture is part of a war chant, or haka, to show strength or to intimidate an enemy.

Though the Maori’s certainly were not trying to scare the attendees of Celebration, it is none-the-less important to look through other cultures with a different pair of “lenses” than one’s own; one could easily apply the American “lenses” over the Maori action and take offense by an out-stuck tongue.

The lesson here being to respect other cultures.

In my own future French classroom, students will be exposed to numerous cultures in the francophone world from Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Some things, especially food, may be easy for Americans to ridicule or revolt from, but they should be exposed to these things and taught that the way other peoples live their lives, on a cultural level, is no thing for outsiders to ridicule without full understanding of the complexities and intricacies of the host environment.

Source for Maori culture

Photo Credit.

Where I’m From: Shaun

Where I’m from… – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires;

Reflections:

What have I learned from this activity and how might I use the learning strategies and / or technology in my teaching placement?

The learning strategy of HaikuDeck, to me, as it applies to foreign-language instruction, is to take available information from the individual and transmute it into a simple slideshow presentation that may be used as an aid to an oral presentation.

The learning strategy of WordPress, to me, is to create an open-access databank available for students, in which students can collaborate and share their developments and projects with the class on an online platform.

To use HaikuDeck in the French classroom:

It could used for simple presentations of a similar manner (sampling a piece of work, maybe not necessarily an “I am from”), it could be used for a book review/synopsis, talking about parts of an individual’s life, or for presentations on locations in the francophone world.

It is a simple presentation tool, albeit with some mildly-infuriating restrictions (namely, unmovable, and non-resizable text boxes), but a project could be done at home as part of homework.

It would be a more applicable tool in the classroom if the students used their own photos for the presentations, so they are more authentic to the student.

Photo credit.