Category: Teaching as Art

Immigrants and Multicultural Society 

AP Social Studies

‘How do you identify as an immigrant and what does it mean to live in a multicultural society’

I am a first-generation Canadian citizen of immigrant parents but never really thought of or identified myself that way. My mother emigrated from Poland at a young age with her eight brothers and sisters and landed in Toronto Canada. Bringing as much of her cultural heritage with her as she could, including a sliver menorah, one of a few artifact that they took with them, and eventually raising a family there. I grew up in a culturally diverse downtown Toronto up until half way through the middle of middle school when we then moved to a less diverse north Toronto suburb where I lived till moving out around eighteen.

In my early thirties I emigrated to New York with my wife and one child, a little less cultural heritage than my mother but included the menorah that my mother gave me. Three of my four children are first generation United states citizens. I still don’t identify myself as coming from an immigrant family nor that I am an immigrant from another country, but I do identify with my heritage.

In this course over the next six weeks we will think, discuss and write about immigrants in a multicultural society. Break down the discussions into five topics and define, develop and  present each week.

Week 1 Immigrants and Multiculturalism

What is Multiculturalism? Let talk about it and define it, how do you experience it

Week 2 Community

A community is more than just a group of people living in a particular area

What does community mean to you? A group of people, family, friends, Neighbors.             They are there when we need love support encouragement

Work independently Readings/references

Week 3 Cultural History

Cultural history records and interprets past events. What does it mean to you and                 what is important to bring with you and keep or disregard.

Choose a partner Readings/references

Week 4 Cultural Heritage

The use of artifact and rituals from the past to maintain a connection to the                         present. Do you think it is important to have physical connections to the past?

Two partners group with another two partners Readings/references

Week 5 Cultural Diversity

Cultural diversity is the cultural diversity and cultural differences that exist in the world.

In a multicultural society where does the line lie between diversity and monoculture.

The group of four form with another group of four Readings/references

Week 6 Multicultural Society

When people of different cultures come together to celebrate and share their cultural differences. What do you think of equal respect and the continuity of cultural diversity.

This society will present in front of the rest of the class Readings/references

What have we learned about diversity and how do we get along. Can we work in harmony and discuss our differences and work on common interests? How much of our culture do we bring to a multicultural society.

Teaching My Younger Self                              February 1^st ,2018

Design a curriculum for your young self, High School sophomore.

I would like to first state that I think that the basic premise that I can teach my younger self is flawed. Is not part of who I am, formed by how I was taught and therefore bias me in setting out a curriculum for myself?  Do I want to change or influence who I have become? Is my intention to correct what I don’t like or how I learn and would have liked to do it differently, a do-over?  I see myself as a ‘Jack of all Trades, Master of None’ and believe this was molded by my education and who I am and what I took away from it. Am I formed or informed by my younger self.

At the time I was a sophomore (Junior high school in Canada) it was the next wave of experiment schooling. I was taught in both a traditional classroom education with desks set in rows, teachers at the front of the room, textbooks, memory work, black boards as well as a more open experimental environment that broke those rules. My chemistry teacher taught in the traditional classroom with school supplied text books, memorizing and frequent testing. He was good at teaching that way and I got a solid foundation. I had a social studies teacher that intentionally worked outside of the traditional classroom and taught in a way that was very exciting and stimulating and made connections between learning and the real world. I also had a physics teacher that straddled both the traditional classroom and experimental learning by combining a solid foundation and making connections with the real world. He taught both inside and outside the classroom, taught in an interdisciplinary way and helped me learn by connecting the text book to the cause and effect of the environment around me.

Setting out a curriculum for my younger self, structure is very important and to have a foundation, clear perameters, discipline and direction. At the same time and equally important is a curriculum that gives freedom to explore and the environment to teach it in. As a sophomore, as mentioned in class, this is the time of transition from a child to an adult. This is a no man’s land between having the fundamentals of an education and the freedom to interpret it. There is a phrase that is something like, ‘You can’t abstract the flower until you can copy the flower then you can paint the real flower’. I think that you can’t really explore without having the tools to guide you.

Setting out a good curriculum for myself would combine the solid foundation of a traditional education with the experimentation and exploration of a freer environment. I don’t think these are mutually exclusive but count on a teacher to be a disciplined and creative thinker. There needs to be a flexibility in the curriculum to adapt to the needs of the student.

Teaching as Art                                                     01/24/2018

How do I learn?

Learning is hard! Teaching is Harder!

‘Jack of all trades, master of none’     ‘I Know a little about a lot, not a lot about a little.’

I am task oriented and learn by defining the criteria and constraints, gather information and set the parameters. I have learned that by having more limitations I have more freedom to be creative and learn.  I would like to believe that I am thoroughly mathematical and scientific about learning, but in reality, at one point I just jump in and try to figure it out intuitively. I am good at listening, though I also like to talk and express my point of view. I want to interpret and broaden the material that is being taught, thinking out of the box and not taking things at face value. But other times I take things at face value and not define or question them, just learn from them.

I use visual cues to help me learn and strengthen my learning experiences that in turn add and reinforce what I am learning. I like to make personal connections and historical references and tie that back to my experiences and how it effects my day to day life. I look at learning as a practical experience, of trial and error and reflect on it and then intellectualize it. How do I tie my shoe, can I tie my shoe, why do I tie my shoe, does it matter if I tie my shoe…the art of tying my shoe. Learning is not an exact science but more amorphous. There is not a one to one relationship from what I am taught to what I learn. When I learn something well and it sticks I can teach it.

I don’t like learning out of my comfort zone but will take to the challenge and try and figure it out. Usually once I start on a task is not an easy learning curve, but I find that I learn and grow, slowly and don’t realize what I’ve learned until I am further along and can apply what I’ve learned to something else which adds to my experience.

The environment that I learn in is very important. What I am learning and where effects my ability to learn. Learning in nature is the most fulfilling and satisfying and there I use all my senses. I find that what I learn has a more direct connection between me and my surroundings. What I learn in nature is direct and simple in its cause and effect and the more effort I put in the more nature gives back and teaches. Learning how to build a fire in the woods, for instance, takes time and patience and if I do it wrong it won’t work and I am cold and hungry. There is also the poetic beauty in the imagination of the flames of the fire that congers up stimulate thoughts.

Lastly, there is wisdom, which is the accumulation of learning as it applies to experience which these days seems to be a little under rated.