Classroom Exercises

2014. American Psychological Association “Classroom Exercises”

http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/social-class-exercises.aspx

 

This resource is includes numerous classroom exercises that can be used to teach students about socioeconomic class. These exercises can be modified to teach many grade levels. We would use these exercises in the classroom when conducting history lessons on SES. An example of an exercise is the “Baby Egg”. This exercise separates students into three different socioeconomic classes high, middle, and low SES. Then, the students in a particular group receive a voucher to buy merchandise that will help to keep the baby egg protected from breaking once it is dropped. As this class exercise states, “Eggs that were best protected have the best chance of survival thus illustrating the reality of social class privilege. This experiment will most likely yield much emotion as the rich parents were better able to provide protection for their baby compared to parents with less economic advantage. Process emotions and relate this exercise to situations such as first dibs and adequate housing, health care, daycare, education, nutrition, etc.” We think that this exercise is a good resource for helping educators teach socioeconomic class and we would not modify the exercise. We would use this “Baby Egg” exercise in high school. We think that elementary school and middle school students would be too young to correctly grasp the concept of socioeconomic class in this way because they do not have a job. Once a student has a job they start to understand the value of a dollar and what a dollar can buy. Understanding this concept is important because this “Baby Egg” exercise provides students with a monetary voucher to buy merchandise to keep their baby egg protected from harm once it was dropped.

 

Effective teaching and support of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds: Practical advice for teaching staff

Devlin, M. “Effective teaching and support of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds: Practical advice for teaching staff” http://www.lowses.edu.au/assets/Practical%20Advice%20for%20Teaching%20Staff.pdf

 

This resource is a helpful tool for providing help to students of low socioeconomic background. This resource is a guide that “provides practical advice about the teaching characteristics and strategies that contribute to the success of students from low socioeconomic status (LSES) and about the ways in which student agency may be enabled” (page 1). Educators teaching any grade level would benefit from using this resource. For this reason, students in any grade level would benefit from being taught by educators who use these strategies in their classroom. Therefore, there is no particular grade level that this resource would be best for. We think that this guide is very helpful and we would not make any modifications to it.  

 

Center Stage—Focus on Poverty

Learning to Give “Center Stage—Focus on Poverty” Lesson 2 From Unit: Setting the Stage for Service Learning Relationships 

http://learningtogive.org/lessons/unit100/lesson2.html

 

This is a lesson plan for a history class. We choose this lesson plan it is a good resource to have when teaching students about socio economic status. We would use this in the classroom when we try to teach students about stereotypes about the people in various socio economic classes. We would teach this to students ranging from grades 6th-8th. One of the strengths of this lesson plan is that it allows students to express their personal experiences about stereotypes about people from different socio economic classes. This idea was clearly stated in the lesson plan: “With consideration to the personal experiences of students, invite students to dialogue about pre-judging the character of individuals based on stereotypes of appearance and material wealth. This is an opportunity for students to cognitively and affectively reflect upon stereotypes of different economic classes of individuals.” We saw this particular part as a strength because it allows students to speak openly about their own personal experiences which allows the educator to help the students connect this topic in a way that it relates to them and their experiences. However, we did also notice that this lesson plan provides a weakness. One of the weaknesses that this lesson plan presents educators with regards the use of technology. The lesson plan states that teachers should use the website http://tolerance.org and read the story “Eat, My Fine Coat” to the students. If teachers are not technologically adapt accessing this story online would be difficult and time consuming. If the educator does have good technological skills, but if the school that the teacher works in does not provide good connection to the internet this again would be time consuming. The lesson plan also states that if technology is not available than the teacher can just simply read this story to the students from a book. This would be a setback if the teacher cannot locate the story online and if s/he does not have physical access to the book. To modify this lesson plan, we would include a direct internet link where this particular story can be accessed from. However, if this school or educator does not have access to technology we would also make sure that this lesson plan includes this story. We would include this short story or a snippet of the story that we want to focus on directly on the lesson plan for easy access for the educator.   

 

What can educators do…to break the cycle of oppression in schools and society?

The Syracuse Teachers Association “What can educators do…to break the cycle of oppression in schools and society?”

 http://syracuseteachers.org/SocialJusticeBrochure.pdf

 

This resource is a pamphlet that offers advice to educators on how to help break cycles of oppression. This pamphlet can be used for any grade level. In regards to socio economic class this pamphlet provides educators with seven helpful suggestions. In regards to these seven suggestions one strength that we noticed was that it advises teachers to “Avoid making assumptions about students based on class”. We saw this as a strength because we know that as future teachers we need to learn to not assume certain things about our students. We instead need to have open relationships with our students that help us talk to all of them and treat every single one of them equally. In regards to these suggestions one weakness that we noticed was that the pamphlet states that educators need to “Find ways to communicate effectively with all families and include them in their child’s education.” Although, this sounds like an ideal thing to do it is difficult for educators to “communicate effectively with all families”. This is difficult because not all students are raised in families that are native to the English language. If the teacher only communicates to the students in the English language then, communication with families who do not speak English will be difficult. Therefore, we found this to be a weakness. However, this is possible to modify. As future educators, we can ask our students if their parent/guardian speaks and understands the English language. We can do this by providing them with a handout to take home and fill out with their parent/guardian. By doing so, the educators will have access to what parent/guardian speaks English and which ones do not. We can ask them to provide us with what language is predominately spoken at home and then we can try to arrange various ways of contacting them in this particular language.