Posted by Andrea Benkel on February 27, 2012 in Diversity, Featured | 0 comments
Last month I spent an afternoon in a kindergarten classroom asking students about global awareness. While my original goal was to develop a vocabulary that would help preschoolers see the world from their small space, I was overwhelmed by the insights and observations of the five to six year old community.
I wondered if this passion for knowledge about the world and its cultures would carry over as the children grew and developed as questioners and thinkers. What would it look like? Sound like? Will an event like our Global Awareness Day be a yearly tradition or a foundation for more?
Thank goodness I am part of a Preschool-8th grade school. I know that there are sixth graders that I can talk to, question and trust over on the other side of campus. These are my babies and a lifetime (okay 6 years) ago I was their preschool teacher.
They had been creating their own definition of culture and provided some insights on Global Awareness and Cultural Diversity. While there were some common themes with the sixth grade and kindergarten, I noticed one distinct difference. Almost all of the students identified some type of artifact, clothing, language and food as a key component of a culture. The difference in the two grade levels was not necessarily aboutwhat they knew as much as how they thought about it. The vocabulary, experiences, food and conversations they had learned and experienced in school over the years gave these students a depth of thought and understanding when it came to their world….their passports are covered in the stamps of experience! They have moved from what it looks like, sounds like and tastes like to be a diverse people. They spent most of their interview talking about what it feels like to think differently, to experience life differently and to live with norms and expectations that make someone else’s ordinary seem extraordinary to us.
I walked back to preschool, the little United Nations that people dream of. The kids are sleeping and one of the teachers has a CD of Tibetan Monks playing softly in the background. Thank goodness for rest time…it seems that the world will be giving them a lot to think about.
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