I taught my lesson on similarities and differences among individuals to my kindergarten class. I learned a lot from teaching this lesson, and found it to be very helpful for the students social studies material that they needed to cover in their curriculum. All of the students were great participators during my lesson, and I felt great that they were interested enough to raise their hand and get involved in the discussion by sharing their ideas and experiences.
I learned that this was a great topic to share with kindergarten students because while they are learning about diversity, they still are able to share their personal experiences (preferences, characteristics, family, etc). I learned that students are much more aware of the differences that are among our society than what I would have thought. They notice a lot of the physical differences among their peers, but are still respectful and accepting of those characteristics, which is an important part of diversity. For the most part, the students understood why diversity is important to discuss, but need to further their concept of the value diversity has in our society. In short, I learned how much the students know in regards to the topic of diversity, and also was able to gauge their feelings about the subject, which showed as being favorable by the class!
I also was able to learn about myself and my teaching from conducting this lesson. I think that I did a good job of connecting with the students and encouraging them to continue sharing their response and experiences. I tried hard to keep the students on track and praise the ideas that they were presenting during the discussion. There were also many things that I learned about myself through my teaching that need to be improved. One of them is to not dominate the discussion and allow the students to get more involved. The whole point of teaching a lesson is to make sure they are getting something out of it and learning, so it’s important that they feel like they have an opportunity to ask questions and express themselves openly and often. Along with opening up the discussion to the students more, I also need to work on managing my time better throughout the lesson. While it is important for all students to get the chance to express themselves, it is also important to manage the discussion and keep track of time. These were several of the things I learned about myself after listening to my own lesson.
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I bet your students were so cute! The fact that children are so open and accepting of one another is so humbling and inspirational. It makes me wonder at what age do they begin to view those who are different as "bad" or not "normal"? I wonder what occurs in their lives that forces stereotypical thoughts and beliefs to form in their minds? Like your kindergartners, my fourth graders were also very aware and accepting of their differences and their classmates differences, and, slightly different from your class, my fourth graders were able to understand and appreciate how important these differences are to our society as a whole. I really hope they can hold on to these beliefs. I think issues, such as diversity and acceptance, are so important in our society; especially in the 21st century. Its one reason I focused on critical/cultural literacy in my explorations project. As teachers, I think its important that we not only acknowledge, but discuss these issues in a sincere and appropriate way with our students. Just becuase we think parents or faculty may disagree, is not a reason to shy away.
ReplyDeleteSecond grade is the lowest grade that I have worked with. I was wondering how you manage a group of kindergardeners because I know that my second graders always want to talk and I can only imagine that kindergardeners would be worse. Is there a greater need for specific classroom norms in kindergardeners to help with this or are their other strategies that your teacher uses? I am just interested in how classroom norms change from grade to grade.
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