Johanna Busch
Cultural Exchange
I decided to implement a cultural exchange program after interactions between my students and a special educator at my school. The special education teacher that pulled five students from my class multiple times a week was Haitian. At the beginning of the year, many of my students made fun of this teacher's accent. Several students' families expressed concern that their child was working with an educator who did not speak English as a first language. Students sometimes were hesitant or even refused to go work with this educator.
When I talked to my students about this, I realized that many of them had never interacted with an immigrant before. They were scared to work with someone who spoke differently from them and had different cultural norms. My students' lack of exposure to people from different countries and cultures was keeping them from accessing much needed academic support. My students needed to increase their knowledge about and interactions with people from other cultures to access current and future academic and professional opportunities. In a global world, being able to comfortably interact with people from other cultures will open doors for my students. Because of this, I decided to bring in guest speakers of a variety of different cultural backgrounds to increase my students exposure, understanding, and comfort level with people different from themselves.
So far, our classroom has welcomed three guest speakers. Mr. Z talked about Chinese culture. Senor Robles presented about Puerto Rican culture. Rabbi Pine presented about Jewish culture. This page will show how I planned these opportunities, encouraged students to participate by preparing them with background knowledge, and finally presented the guests to students.
Research
The first step of my planning process was a meeting with my Teach for America coach where I voiced my concern about my students refusal to work with the Haitian special educator and their lack of exposure to different cultures. He gave me the idea of inviting guest speakers from different cultures. Then, I researched the benefits, challenges, and logistics of inviting multicultural guest speakers into the classroom. According to Matthew Lynch, "welcoming guest speakers into the class that hail from differing backgrounds and have all made a positive contribution to important fields can also help dispel any preconceived notions that students might possess about the relative competence and value of people from different cultures" (Lynch, 2012). Read the full article here. Exposing students to personal narratives serves as a springboard for conversation about a range of issues including immigration, citizenship, and tolerance (Barbour, 2018). Read the full article here. Based on this research, I decided to invite guest speakers from a range of different cultures into my classroom.
Chinese Culture
The first speaker I invited was Mr. Z., a former professor of mathematics at Morgan State University and a Chinese immigrant. I emailed Mr. Z. inviting him to come share his culture with my class. Meeting Mr. Z. and learning about his culture would not have been readily accessible to students if I had not organized this outside opportunity.
This is my initial email to Mr. Z explaining the project and inviting him to our class.
Here is Mr. Z's response and my follow-up scheduling a time for him to come.
This is my initial email to Mr. Z explaining the project and inviting him to our class.
After an email exchange and an after school meeting, Mr. Z and I decided that he would focus on talking about the Chinese New Year, which was happening just a few days after his visit. We decided that he would come in for about thirty minutes on Thursday, January 31.
Preparation for Mr. Z's Visit
After an email exchange and an after school meeting, Mr. Z and I decided that he would focus on talking about the Chinese New Year, which was happening just a few days after his visit. We decided that he would come in for about thirty minutes on Thursday, January 31. To encourage students to take advantage of this opportunity, I decided to spend the week leading up to Mr. Z.'s visit providing them with context and background knowledge about Chinese New Year and Chinese culture in general. Since my students had limited prior knowledge about Chinese culture, I thought that providing them with some additional information would encourage them to engage with Mr. Z. more fully, allowing them to ask deeper questions and have some context for the information he shared.
To prepare, students listened to a read aloud of A New Year's Reunion by Li Qiong Yu. This story is about a young girl who's migrant worker father returns once a year to celebrate Chinese New Year with his family. After listening to the story, students made connections between themselves and the story. Many students shared stories about family members they don't see often coming to their houses to celebrate holidays.
Here is the Youtube video of a read aloud of A New Year's Reunion that students watched to build context about Chinese New Year and make connections between another culture and their own lives.
After reading the story, students read an article about Chinese New Year. Finally, they recorded what they already know about Chinese New Year and what they still wonder about the holiday. Students wrote down questions they had both about the celebration and about Chinese culture in general. I encouraged students to remember these questions to ask our guest speaker on Thursday to allow them to take advantage of his expertise and personal experience.
This student shared knowledge she learned fro the readings. She also asked questions about Chinese New Year.
This student recalled information from the story. He also had general questions about China, such as "Do they have ningas?"
Here is the article about Chinese New Year that students read to gain more context about this holiday.
This student shared knowledge she learned fro the readings. She also asked questions about Chinese New Year.
Mr. Z's Visit
After spending a week increasing student understanding and background knowledge about Chinese New Year, Mr. Z. came in to speak to my class about Chinese New Year, Chinese culture, and his experience as an immigrant. Mr. Z. showed students pictures of his family in China. He talked to them about the kinds of food people eat in his region of China. He also discussed how his family celebrates the Chinese New Year. He also showed students a map of the world to discuss how far away China is from Baltimore. Mr. Z. Gave students time to ask him questions which included "Do they speak Spanish there?" "Do you miss your family?", and "How do you say hello in Chinese?".
Finally, Mr. Z. told students about the tradition of giving money envelopes to friends and family to celebrate the Chinese New Year. He showed students how to make the envelopes. Students were given time to color their own envelopes and address them to their own loved ones. Below are pictures of students taking part in this opportunity for cultural exchange.
Mr Z shows students where China and Baltimore are on a world map.
Mr. Z answers students' questions about his culture.
Students make money envelopes to celebrate Chinese New Year.
A student shows her finished money envelope.
After Mr. Z left, I led a class discussion about similarities and differences between the celebration of New Year's here in Baltimore and in China. Students shared what they had learned about how Chinese New Year is celebrated. We also discussed how their own families celebrate the New Year. We talked about how celebrating in different ways is exciting not bad. Students shared that they didn't know that Chinese people celebrated the New Year on a different day. They shared how they can embrace different customs rather than making fun of them.
This student wrote about what his family eats on the New Year. He also wrote about money envelopes, which we made with Mr. Z.
This student wrote that Chinese people eat rice balls to celebrate the New Year. He also wrote that in North America people kiss on the lips to celebrate.
This student wrote that we celebrate the New Year on January 1st in North America.
This student wrote about what his family eats on the New Year. He also wrote about money envelopes, which we made with Mr. Z.
Teacher Reflection
I was so shocked by how little my students knew about China when we started preparing for Mr. Z's visit. Most students knew that they used chopsticks and ate beef with broccoli and that was about it. Even after all of our preparation, when Mr. Z visited, one student was confused about why Mr. Z did not speak Spanish. It soon became clear that this student thought everyone spoke either English or Spanish and was unaware that other languages existed. I realized that I should have provided by students with even more extensive background knowledge than I realized they needed. Regardless, students loved spending time with Mr. Z, learning about his hometown, and making money envelopes with him. Afterwards, they were really excited to learn more about Chinese culture.
If I hadn't invited Mr. Z, my students would not have had the opportunity to learn about China or talk with a Chinese person. During our class discussion afterwards, many students shared that they were surprised how similar Mr. Z was to their parents. Even though he looked and talked differently from them, spending time with Mr. Z helped my students to relate to him. Hopefully, this will help them to be more confident interacting with other people from different cultures in the future. The success of Mr. Z's visit made me and the students even more excited to welcome our next guest.
Puerto Rican Culture
Planning
After such a successful visit from Mr. Z, I invited Senor Robles to come visit my second grade class. Senor Robles is Puerto Rican. I felt very strongly that my students should have a positive cultural experience with a LatinX person. Though almost all students at my school are black, I often here my students making racist comments about "Mexicans." I know that there is a lot of racial tension in many communities in Baltimore between black and LatinX communities. When my students make these racist comments, I often try to dig deeper and see where this sentiment is coming from. I learned that many of my students don't know any Spanish speaking people. They are often just parroting what they hear about home. Because of this, I planned to give them access to a LatinX guest speaker. I emailed Senor Robles inviting him to come to our class.
Here is the email that I sent to Senor Robles to plan when he would come to visit our class.
Preparation for Senor Robles's Visit
After realizing how little background knowledge students had about geography and other cultures during Mr. Z's visit, I realized that I needed to prepare my students more before Senor Robles came. I wanted to encourage students to use our limited time with Senor Robles productively by giving them some background knowledge about Puerto Rico. We also discussed and practiced how to respectfully ask someone questions about their culture without being rude or racist. Providing this explicit instruction to students in how to interact with people from other cultures started to provide them with the skills they need to interact with people from different cultures.
To do this, I showed students a powerpoint about Puerto Rico. Afterwards, they recorded what they knew about Puerto Rico and questions they wanted to ask Senor Robles. We then discussed the questions they wanted to ask. As a class, we discussed how these questions might make a Puerto Rican person feel. Some questions were edited or discarded completely. It was important for students to understand how to ask questions appropriately.
Above is the Powerpoint that I showed students to give them some background knowledge about Puerto Rico before Senor Robles' visit.
This student wrote that Puerto Rico is part of the USA. She wondered what they eat there.
This students had a lot of questions about Puerto Rico. During our discussion, we talked about how to make some of them more respectful.
This student wondered if Puerto Ricans get their hair cut and read bed time stories.
This student knew that Puerto Ricans listen to different kinds of music than we do. He wondered if they still listen to some songs that we do.
After learning a little about Puerto Rico, students recorded what they knew and what they still wondered. This helped them prepare to learn from Senor Robles while being respectful of his culture.
Senor Robles' Visit
Because of snowy weather during the week he was supposed to come, Senor Robles visited our class on February 8, 2019. Senor Robles brought a speaker and played Puerto Rican music the whole time he was there. This instantly caught my students' attention. At the end of his visit, Senor Robles even pulled up a Just Dance Youtube video to show my students how to dance to a song that is popular in Puerto Rico.
This is an image of Senor Robles introducing himself and getting ready to pass out maps he brought in.
This is an image of a student Senor Robles called up to show the class where Puerto Rico is on the map.
This is Senor Robles teaching students how to count to ten in Spanish.
Here are students learning a popular dance with Senor Robles.
Here are images from the day that Senor Robles visited our classroom. Click on an image to view it larger.
Jewish Culture
For our third speaker, I wanted to introduce students to a different type of cultural diversity. I invited a rabbi to come teach my students about Jewish culture to introduce them to religious diversity. This seemed especially important because almost all of my students identify as Christian. However, one of my students is Muslim and has been made fun of for his family's differences. I wanted to show my students that even people who were born in Baltimore can have different cultural heritages. I wanted to further emphasize that these differences are exciting and should be embraced. I hoped that meeting a rabbi and learning about Jewish culture would help my students learn more about people from other cultures who are not necessarily immigrants.
Here is an email exchange between Rabbi Pine and me. I invited Rabbi Pine to our class and planned a convenient time.
Rabbi Pine decided to introduce my students to Jewish culture through music and stories. Since she came around the time of Tu B'shevat, a Jewish holiday that celebrates trees and plants, she prepared a variety of songs and stories about nature. None of my students had previously heard of this holiday. Rabbi Pine taught them several new songs and taught them about Jewish values through a story. This helped my students to learn about Jewish culture in a kid-friendly, engaging way.
Jewish Music
Rabbi Pine taught students that a lot of Jewish music is in a different language called Hebrew. She projected the song sheet below to help students learn the words to new songs, some of which were in Hebrew and some in English. Projecting the words encouraged students to participate in the singing. Between singing songs, she talked about when Jewish people would sing each song and what makes them important. She also gave students time to dance and have fun with the new music.
The document above is the song sheet that Rabbi Pine projected so that my students could learn the words to new songs.
Rabbi Pine taught students that "boker tov" means "good morning" in Hebrew. She taught them a popular good morning song with those words. Rabbi Pine also taught students a song called "Od Yavo" which is about peace around the world. Students clapped and sang along with the guitar to these songs and more. Click below to watch videos of students singing these two songs.
After learning some new songs, students took turns holding and strumming the guitar. Many young students learn best kinesthetically. Getting a chance to play the guitar engaged them, allowing them to learn even more about Jewish culture and music.
This is an image of Rabbi Pine showing a student how to hold the guitar.
This is an image of a student strumming the guitar on his own.
Jewish Stories
Rabbi Pine also taught students about the holiday of Tu B'shevat through a stories. One of the stories she told a story was about a young boy who sees an old man planting a carob tree. The boy asks why the old man is planting a tree if he will be dead by the time the tree gives fruit. The man tells the boy that he is planting this tree for his grandchildren and great-children. Because my students love listening to stories, this was an engaging way for them to learn about a holiday from another culture. This also started a conversation about how important it is for us to take care of our world. Click below to watch a video of Rabbi Pine telling the story.
Meeting Rabbi Pine, listening to Jewish stories, and singing Jewish songs gave students an introduction to a third culture. Though Rabbi Pine is not an immigrant, she is a part of a culture that my students were not familiar with. Singing and interacting with her gave my students another opportunity to learn from someone who is different from them and to practice celebrating differences rather than fearing them.
Conclusion
After seeing that my students were unable to work with a Haitian educator, I decided to provide students with increased access to people from different cultures. After just a couple of guest speakers, my students already know so much more about other cultures than they did just a few months ago. If I had not invited these speakers to my classroom, my students would not have been able to learn about their cultures. I encouraged students to take advantage of these opportunities by providing them with background knowledge. I also led discussions about how to ask questions about someone's culture appropriately. After learning about different cultures directly from individuals who are a part of them, my students are already much more comfortable talking with and about people who are different from themselves. During Senor Robles' visit, a student shared that her father was Puerto Rican and talked about how that impacted her family. Another student shared that her parents were from Togo. These students previously did not feel comfortable sharing this part of their identities with the class.
Though I would have loved to invite the Haitian special educator to present to my class, he unfortunately left our school a few weeks after I started planning this project. Though my students were not able to learn about his culture and get to know him better, I hope that in the future they will be more able to work with people who are different from them.
Building a multicultural classroom environment has so many benefits for students. By inviting guest speakers, I have started to open doors for students that will help them in school and beyond. Because of the guest speaker opportunities that I organized, students are more comfortable talking to people from other cultures. This will allow them to get the most out of their time in school (allowing them to work with teachers from different cultures) and help them to be successful in their careers. Furthermore, students newfound excitement around learning about other cultures is a step towards building the kind of accepting communities that are lacking in our city.
References
Barbour, B. (2018, October 09). Sharing Immigrant Experiences in the Classroom. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/sharing-immigrant-experiences-classroom
Lynch, M. (2012, March 07). Promoting Respect for Cultural Diversity in the Classroom. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/promoting-respect-for-cul_b_1187683?ec_carp=3210541175445242231