Teacher to teacher
Using your travels to educate students
Oct 29, 2009 5:03 PM
While in Mongolia, learning about the culture, the author learned the processes for skinning a goat for food preparation.
Have you ever traveled abroad and wondered how to fully share your experiences with your students? This past summer I joined 15 other teachers traveling to Mongolia and New Zealand for six weeks. The Fulbright-Hays Program funded our airfare, room, board, fees and travel expenses — all so we could study the two countries and bring our discoveries back to the classroom.
Upon returning, I tried numerous techniques to teach culture to my 6th-grade students, many whom have never left New York City. My students and I had such a creative, positive and engaging time discovering Mongolian culture together! Based on our successful experiences, here are some ways to take what is acquired while traveling and apply it in the classroom:
Photographs from travels can be used to get students more engaged in the analysis of a culture. While in Mongolia, I took photos of the processes for making felt, putting up a ger (nomadic home) and skinning a goat for food preparation. When the photos are printed and mixed up, students have the challenge of putting them in the correct sequential order. They loved the skinned goat the best — sometimes the ickier the topic the better!
In addition to sequencing the photos, my students used a technique from Adrienne Gear’s “Nonfiction Reading Power” to analyze them. Looking at the photos, they made a chart with their observations, wonderings and inferences. They determined that all the activities involved teamwork, revolved around animals, and were done with little technology. They understood many of the underlying ideals in Mongolia without being directly told. Go student discovery!
PowerPoint presentations are great for using photos and videos to engage and hold students’ attention. The most popular video clips, so far, are of horse catching and contortionism. Reading or talking about these topics could never have as much impact as a one-minute video clip.
Asking students to take a role or solve a problem before telling the answer can pique their interest. For example, before showing the horse-catching clip, I might ask, “How would you catch a horse if you didn’t already have one?” Once they have discussed this, they are very interested to see how the professionals do it.
Presenting facts in a manner that relates to the students’ own experiences gets them more involved. For example, I have my students multiply their age by four (the average times a Mongolian moves in one year). When told that if they were Mongolian they would have moved that many times in their lives already, they are surprised and start to think about what a nomadic lifestyle means. This has a greater impact than if I had just told them the fact, “Mongolians move an average of four times a year.”
Camels, who are featured on Mongolian currency, are important for getting around.
Everyday objects can also play a large role in teaching about a culture. Displaying stamps with famous paintings from Mongolia paired with Mongolian currency became an activity on Mongolian lifestyle. Because both are covered in horses and camels, it becomes clear to the students that Mongolia is a very agrarian society. Children are often surprised to learn that other countries have different currencies. We are able to have a great deal of engaging discussions on the subject.
Touch kits are valuable teaching tools. I gathered wool from various stages of the felt-making process so students were able to see and touch dirty, rough wool, clean wool and handmade felt. Costumes and hats have been great for role playing. Even symbols on a national flag can be deciphered to show the ideology of a culture.
Using firsthand accounts of life in a foreign culture is an excellent way to teach both history and culture. One of our Mongolian guides shared with us her life story of growing up in communist Mongolia and then watching it change to a democracy. Upon my request, she gave me her written life story to share with my students. They were fascinated by the idea that under communism everyone owned the same things and were not allowed to watch movies. Additionally, becoming a democracy did not make everything instantly better. Reading a firsthand account brought home the effects of the different governments on an average person.
Using your travel experiences to expand the world of your students is rewarding for all parties involved. I highly encourage it. I also invite you to check out the Fulbright-Hays Program.
Happy travels!
A Maori student practices her warrior face for the traditional dance.
