Hello,
The effort on the NECAPs was strong today. I appreciate some of the talks that I assume went on at home. No questions skipped. Students were ready for me when I came by to collect them. They took some pride in saying, "I checked everything." Bravo. Great improvement in just one day.
We did a fun activity this morning that ties into our mini-study of Christopher Columbus. I separated the class into four "tribes." The Bambams, the Funfuns, the Haphaps, and the Jubjubs (not fruminous) each had their own language and goals. The initial point of all of this is to see if people can communicate when they have totally different languages. You can ask your child for the details. Two of the tribes were all about fun and happiness. Their goals were to get members of the other tribes to do different actions that would mean that they wanted to be friends. The other two tribes had goals that were a little less admirable. The Bambams were trying to get people to touch the sink, which obviously was a sign that somebody was agreeing to do all of your cleaning for you. The Jubjubs were trying to get classmates to touch their feet, which was a sign that the person felt beneath you and was willing to be your servant. All goals were kept secret from the other tribes, but each tribe knew that the others also had goals.
As expected, there was a ridiculous amount of gesturing and frustration. It was fantastic. In the end The Funfuns and Haphaps were much more willing to go along with the requests of the other two tribes because they were less suspicious of their intentions. These two tribes had a lot more trouble getting others to go along with their requests, however. The Bambams and and Jubjubs were much more suspicious and tended to ignore other tribes requests.
We discussed this a bit, but I don't think all of it will sink in until I can relate it to the Europeans and Native Americans. They had different languages, different expectations, and very different suspicions. I'm sure the kids aren't going to like to see that Columbus wrote in his journal that the people of the "Indies" would make "good and intelligent servants." But I'm hoping I can put this in a little better context by pointing out the culture that Columbus came from. He thought like a European. He wasn't a "bad" one. He did and thought what most any European would have done and thought at the time. He didn't believe that the Natives had language. He believed they didn't have religion. He believed that they were very poor.
Every tribe in class today thought the others were behaving ridiculously. They made a lot of assumptions. Columbus also made a lot of assumptions. Columbus thought that they were basically agreeing to become slaves by their actions. Kind of like today.
I thought this activity up two years ago, and I've expanded on it a bit. I like it and I think it works. They understand a bit better how ridiculous those first few meetings of new cultures must have been. Some kids will still dislike Columbus quite a bit for what he did, and I can't blame them too much for that, but I think I can present it in a balanced way by showing them that his thoughts and actions were a product of his culture. No one in the Bambams thought any of their own tribesmembers were out of line today. Their new servants might think differently.
I have more to say, but I'll update you tomorrow on where we go from here. Half of the connections that I made here, we haven't done in class yet. So you might hold off talking to your child much beyond asking what tribe they were in and what they thought of it. It will all come together in the next two days.
Thanks for reading.
Mr. Shea
Steve
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