Hope you are enjoying happy and restful Memorial day weekend!
I was very happy to meet you ladies on our orientation day as a team. It was definitely a great time that widened my interests and perspectives.
Indeed, we came up with a bunch of fantastic ideas.
Here's some of our ideas that were written in my note (Please add anything that I missed here):
- Writing the same story from different perspectives
ex) Story: Little Red Riding Hood, Writing the story from Wolf's perspective
- Discussing normative sentences for their truthiness
ex) Showing some normative sentences and asking students for their thoughts on whether the sentences are really true
- Christianity as dominant religion vs Mormons/ Armish etc. as minor religion in U.S. or Indiana region
- Discussing the need of cultural respect with the case of 2014 Hong Kong protest
- Discussing Islam through Sufi music
- Experiencing Kabukki (Traditional Japanese drama & dance)
- Exploring widely known prejudices across race, gender, and etc.
- Challenging the media
<Teresa's idea that was shared on 5/27 (Fri) through Group 2 space>
- "One World, Many Voices"
Our end product is a video students will make comparing various perspectives on cultural issues in different regions.
Looking at all of the ideas above together, I've felt that what we were trying to develop was experiences that students could strengthen their capacities to become local citizens who were proud of their own roots and traditions and global citizens who understand and respect cultural diversities in different parts of globe. Although we haven't fixed anything, I guess, this summary can work as a good starting point that we can further develop our ideas.
So, I've tried to think our workshop title and description as follows. Please feel free to share your thoughts on them, suggest any better ideas if you have, and modify as needed :)
- Workshop Title
The Diversity Project with Art: Getting to know myself and you
- Descriptions
Look forward to hearing from your thoughts!!
Oh wow, y'all. I just wrote a really long comment, all kinds of suggestions, and then wasn't signed in, and it got deleted. Let's see what I can do to recreate it.
ReplyDeleteFirst, you all have a ton of great ideas here. I think any one of them would make for a really engaging week for the students, and the underlying themes (politics of knowledge!) are super important to be addressing.
I think the week will be most memorable for the students if you can zero in on a particular topic, and connect it to the students' lives somehow. Whether it's how people (or young folks in particular) relate to music differently (I can point you to a fun academic article on upper-class youth party music in India), or how different religions are portrayed in the media, or unpacking normative statements about how families ("should") work, there are lots of possibilities. The Media Education Foundation is a treasure trove of films on youth issues and media, though it's pretty U.S.-focused.
Based on Teresa's suggestion, though, it also seems like you're considering working from students' own backgrounds. If so, it might help to pick a particular theme (e.g., race, class, or gender in a global context), and start by exploring assumptions about that theme, and then exploring how it plays out globally: i.e., What does it mean to "be a man" (or "be a woman") in rural vs. urban Indiana, rural vs. urban Pakistan, rural vs. urban S. Korea? How is what it means to "be a man" influenced by race or class? Those are always fun questions (for me, at least).
I think the main thing will be make your ideas as concrete as possible. Much as I love the abstractions of theory, case studies make things a lot more memorable.
Oh, also, if you want your focus to be on respecting cultural diversities, one of the more interesting ways of teasing out those challenges is to focus on moments when diversities are incompatible, like when protecting young women's bodies conflicts with traditions that demand they be cut (see This American Life for a really good story on that a couple weeks ago).
Ok. Sorry to write so much. I hope it's helpful. Feel free to ask for clarification or more thoughts, if you'd like. I really enjoy this kind of thing. Happy to hear your thoughts on our project, too!
-Alex
Thanks Alex for your valuable inputs! I totally agree with your point that it would be effective for us to connect our ideas listed to students' daily lives. We will discuss them in a more detailed and specific ways soon. I definitely want to read the article about upper-class youth party music in India. That sounds very interesting! All of your thoughts are really helpful and fantastic! We will reach out to you if we need more clarification in discussing them :) Thank once again, Alex!
DeleteMina & Alexis
ReplyDeleteMore thoughts...
Challenging students' assumptions/perceptions of cultures other than their own. We could begin with students exploring their own world and what they believe to be true. For example, they could tell a story in response to a prompt about an event in their lives. They could then discuss other people/groups about whom they "think" they are familiar and examine those assumptions. Then move on to specific cultures around the world and examine certain facets of those cultures. They might speculate as to why different cultures have different practices and beliefs, then learn the truth about their speculation. Some possible issues might be food, spiritual beliefs, marriage, family, gender... Look forward to your comments.
Fantastic, Teresa! I love that idea. We definitely have to incorporate your idea into our lesson plan. For gentle reminder, we are supposed to submit our title and description that explain our session to Amy & Christina by tomorrow. Do you think I can submit the ones that I proposed in my posting to them as they are? or Do you have any suggestions on them?
DeleteThe only change I might make to your proposal would be instead of singling out artistic performance, say "through artistic mediums." My suggestion for a title: "The Story of Us". I think your proposal description would be good to submit. Thanks
DeleteI like your suggestion for the title, Teresa! Just one clarifying question, what you meant by the "through artistic mediums" is you suggest replace the phrase "with a variety of artistic performances" on the second line of description with "through artistic mediums", is my understanding right?
Delete