Overview:
Although teaching about refugees around the world is not the happiest of topics to teach, to not teach it would make it too easy to ignore the faults in our world. If we ignored the many faults present in our lives, even if we were not directly connected to them, then we also ignore the tragedies that happen in the world by preferring to see the world as a better age than history has ever seen. The truth is that there is still negativity in the world such as violence, inequalities, and racism. By studying these truths and examples of their existence, ways to fix them and strive for a better society can be brainstormed, tested, and fulfilled. People can then understand the context and reasons why this negativity, specifically existence of refugees, happens in history. If we don’t understand how people think this way of life for others is for the greater good or why they even believe that, then we won’t understand why they make the decisions they do. People inherently make decisions that lead to a better outcome in their mind, not to ruin, so there is going to be some justification for their actions. Finding those reasons and learning background contexts are great for social studies lessons. In my Social Studies Methods course, one of the things we talked a lot about was multiple perspectives and a tool to provide this opportunity would be a multiple perspective timeline. This idea can be incorporated throughout the unit I have chosen to talk about different groups and when different groups of people become refugees. By looking at the timeline in this light, students can also see trends that occur on global levels by comparing and contrasting when certain areas produced refugees. They can also see using the timeline as a visual aid that refugee experiences are not the exact same, although there may be similarities.
I strongly believe that students learn best by doing and using concrete examples that are relevant to them expand their thinking. Students can discuss and create scenes from their own past about a time when they were treated unfairly, when they wished they had more of something, when something terrible happened in their family, etc. They may find that what some refugees go through is related to something they have felt, but in class we can delve into how much worse it is for them while brainstorming possibilities to either take action or to learn about why such an event came to pass. Students are then not only actively involved in their learning, through discussions, reenactments, research, or projects, but also relating inequalities the refugees go through to some of those in their own lives and how they compare or contrast. In the end, I, as a teacher, will discover a lot about my students from what they care about to how they think, and it will also fulfill the philosophy I have that the students are not the only learners in the classroom.
Although teaching about refugees around the world is not the happiest of topics to teach, to not teach it would make it too easy to ignore the faults in our world. If we ignored the many faults present in our lives, even if we were not directly connected to them, then we also ignore the tragedies that happen in the world by preferring to see the world as a better age than history has ever seen. The truth is that there is still negativity in the world such as violence, inequalities, and racism. By studying these truths and examples of their existence, ways to fix them and strive for a better society can be brainstormed, tested, and fulfilled. People can then understand the context and reasons why this negativity, specifically existence of refugees, happens in history. If we don’t understand how people think this way of life for others is for the greater good or why they even believe that, then we won’t understand why they make the decisions they do. People inherently make decisions that lead to a better outcome in their mind, not to ruin, so there is going to be some justification for their actions. Finding those reasons and learning background contexts are great for social studies lessons. In my Social Studies Methods course, one of the things we talked a lot about was multiple perspectives and a tool to provide this opportunity would be a multiple perspective timeline. This idea can be incorporated throughout the unit I have chosen to talk about different groups and when different groups of people become refugees. By looking at the timeline in this light, students can also see trends that occur on global levels by comparing and contrasting when certain areas produced refugees. They can also see using the timeline as a visual aid that refugee experiences are not the exact same, although there may be similarities.
I strongly believe that students learn best by doing and using concrete examples that are relevant to them expand their thinking. Students can discuss and create scenes from their own past about a time when they were treated unfairly, when they wished they had more of something, when something terrible happened in their family, etc. They may find that what some refugees go through is related to something they have felt, but in class we can delve into how much worse it is for them while brainstorming possibilities to either take action or to learn about why such an event came to pass. Students are then not only actively involved in their learning, through discussions, reenactments, research, or projects, but also relating inequalities the refugees go through to some of those in their own lives and how they compare or contrast. In the end, I, as a teacher, will discover a lot about my students from what they care about to how they think, and it will also fulfill the philosophy I have that the students are not the only learners in the classroom.