So That Is What It Was Like!

We learn from our past. This statement does not have to be about our personal past, though it can be. In terms of teaching children, it is more often learning from others. Looking at history and how cultures have treated each other, there are a myriad of lessons to learn from.  The first culture clash that I teach about is when the explorers met the natives. I have a few sources, like the excerpts from Columbus’s Journal, that help look at motives and ethical behavior of both natives and Europeans.

I have put together a Board on Discovery Education were I generally get my Social Studies videos. This time I found some images on Discovery that can highlight the natives that my students have learned about. From the board I was able to set the goal for watching the next video that I found on YouTube. The video shows a relatively recent encounter with a native tribe. While I have read about the first encounters with my students, to actually see how a native who has never seen someone with white skin reacts is remarkable. In this encounter, the Europeans were very aware of who they were meeting and how to treat them to have a successful meeting. They were wonderful models of respect, from what the video shows.

I am having students watch the video and think about what the natives must have been thinking. They will have a time stamped graphic organizer to go with the video.  I want them to get into the mindset of the natives so that they can better understand them. Only if they understand them will they be able to respect them.  The natives are speaking in the video, but there is no translation. Students will be able to interpret on their own to create an internal dialogue for these men.  The writing prompt is on the board for them to answer after the video.

The board made it so that a number of different materials will be available to students. I can set up log-ins for Discovery and assign them to the students. If they feel the need to re-watch parts of the video as they are thinking about what it is like to be that native, they would then have that freedom if they worked on this in the computer lab.

After this assignment we will be looking further at what happened in the past when Columbus and the following set of explorers came to North America. This writing prompt, when tied together with the following set of activities, will challenge students to see where there were breaks in ethical and respectful behavior. I want them to learn from this past, and see how they can make choices to improve.  

Click Here to see my When Worlds Meet board.