Lessons, Activities, and School Activities That Demonstrate Value in Diversity

1. Community Circle – Every day, after the tardy bell rings, students would gather in the classroom carpet to discuss issues that arise in the classroom, concerns that students and the teacher want to bring up to the class, to discuss social skills (MegaSkills) that build inclusion and a sense of community in the classroom. The eleven MegaSkills are as follows: 1.) Confidence – feeling able to do it; 2.) Motivation – wanting to do it; 3.) Effort – being willing to work hard; 4.) Responsibility – doing what’s right; 5.) Initiative – moving into action; 6.) Perseverance – completing what you start; 7.) Caring – showing concern for others; 8.) Teamwork – working with others; 9.) Common Sense – using good judgment; 10.) Problem Solving – putting what you know and what you can do into action; 11.) Focus – concentrating with a goal in mind. This time is also spent to discuss and remind the students of the Tribes Learning Community agreements which include the following: Attentive Listening, Appreciation/No Put-Downs, The Right to Pass, and Mutual Respect.

2. Spider Web – This lesson was done during the beginning of the school year. It taught the kids on how to build inclusion, a sense of community, and to respect and accept each others’ differences. The teacher went around with a bundle of string. Each student was to decide how much string they want and tells the teacher where to cut it. Once each student had a string, the teacher discussed how the activity goes. During the activity, each student had an opportunity to share his or her name, something special/unique about himself or herself, what they like and dislike, where they live, and something about their family. The length of string that a student had will determine how much information he/she shared with the class. So the longer the string, the more information will be shared by the student. Each student stood in front of the class and started wrapping the string around their thumb until everything was wrapped around that finger. Until there is more string left hanging, the student had to think of something to special to share about him or herself.

3. Boasters – The objective of this activity was to make statements of appreciation to self and others, build self-esteem, and to build inclusion in the classroom. The students were given cutouts of student profiles and they were to transfer them onto a construction paper. Each student wrote their name in large, colorful letter on the head area of his or her cut-out. The students worked on this activity within their tribes. The tribe members passed the cutouts around the tribes so that each tribe can write a positive statement on each other tribe member’s cutout. At the end of the activity, a discussion was held about complementing oneself and it is different than bragging. Then each student was asked to write a positive statement about himself or herself on his or her own card.

Reflection Questions: Why is it important to be able to make positive statements about others? How can making positive statements to each other help us work together better?

4. I Like My Neighbors – This activity was done as a whole class reward whenever a task was completed on time or when the class positively maintains the behavior chart. Here, the students get to practice using positive phrases by saying “I Like My Neighbors Who……..” A student would stand in front of the class and say: I like my neighbors who are girls. All the girls would then get up from their seats and move to a different seat. The student who doesn’t get a seat would be the next to say something positive about their neighbors.

5. The Little Rainman – In our class, we have a student with special needs and to introduce the rest of the class to her condition, autism, a book was read in the beginning of the school year to help them understand what she is going through. This book opened the students’ eyes as to why kids with this condition act thy way they do.

6. Culture & Community – During our unit involving perception of people and places, students learned about how the different cultures on the island have shaped the community today. We started by using the examples of the different cultures we have in the classroom such as Chamorro, Carolinian, Filipino, American, Chuukese, Palau, Pohnpeian, Chinese, etc. Students gave examples of how many cultures have contributed to Saipan’s community and examples are through architectures, food, songs, dance, clothing, etc. The class was then divided into groups: Chinese, American, Japanese, Palau, and FSM. The students went home to do more research on how the groups assigned to them have contributed to the community and shared with the class the information that they have gathered.