I remember being a teenager and being bombarded by pictures and videos emerging from desperate areas of the world like Somalia and Ethiopia in the 1980s. Shocking, disturbing and terrible to see, as a young person, these images most likely formed my first impressions of these places.
And these impressions would probably remain today if it weren’t for the web.
Sites like Global Voices (which I’ve blogged about before and which is required reading for the kids in my classroom), Afrigator, and this video collection made by students in Senegal have allowed me to peek a bit deeper into the regular everyday lives of people who live in Africa. While I by no means consider myself to be well educated on this part of the world (never having travelled anywhere in Africa even a single time) I do now know something about life in this part of the world.
This has been added to again by the new website, Africa Knows. Simply a collection of photos taken in this part of the world by people who live there, it serves as another window. Beautiful photographs of everyday life, these are the kinds of images that we need to help students form authentic perceptions of parts of the world they have very little knowledge about.
When I want students to begin looking at a country or a part of the world that has come up in our classroom, I want them to overcome stereotypes and pre conceived notions they might already have. That means giving them authentic information they can access over time. Information that is authentic and multimedia. Information that contains the voices of real people struggling with their daily lives as we all do. A few key steps I use in my classroom are:
1.) Go to Global Voices Online and subscribe to the feed of blogs emerging from the nation you are interested in. Realy blogs written by people, this will let you in on the issues that concern people in that place.
2.) Regularly search spaces like flickr and Youtube for images and videos from the place you are interested in. Many nations also have channels or groups that are collections of videos and images that someone is aggregating. You can have your students subscribe to these in whatever reader you are using, making life one step easier.
3.) Use indices of newspapers online like this one to get “official channels” of information. While newspapers are always good to look at to find the latest news stories, if you have older students, it is also interesting for them to compare the issues that are being run in the papers compared to those people are blogging and posting images and videos about. It can be an interesting dichotomy.
More than anything, I am interested in students constructing perceptions and opinions that are based on facts that are real. Combatting racism and a “our way of life is better than yours” type of attitude can be difficult, but in a global world, this is essential work for classrooms.
Photo Credits:
http://africaknows.com/mu/blog/stories/awaiting-transportation/
and
http://africaknows.com/mu/blog/stories/biashara-street/
Clarence, I had never thought of seeking out blogs from other areas of the world. I mean, I know I have people from all over the world that i follow on twitter, but we all share education as a common interest. I am going to visit that Global Voices site and see what i can learn. Then i need to figure out a way to fit that into my vocal music class. Shouldn’t be difficult to do.
You are also correct that our students need to see the world in a different way. Simply relying on our own traditional views and what we learn from our media is not enough and clearly skewed. How much racism and hatred would end if we just took the time to see the commonality in all of us while embracing the differences.
Ed; easy to fit into music classes. One of the feeds from global voices that you can subscribe to would give you posts from all around the world that have to do with music! The page is here: http://globalvoicesonline.org/-/topics/music/ if you are interested.
Another is on arts and culture: http://globalvoicesonline.org/-/topics/arts-culture/
Clarence this is great. I was just reading about and east African singer. I see me having my kids posting or blogging on our ning on music and culture around the world. They love the discussions we are having on the ning, and this would add such a tremendous dimension to our discussions and learning. Thanks!
Thanks Clarence for pointing out Africa Knows. I believe the only way we can overcome stereotypes is by telling our own stories. Life is Texas is best told by Texans and so is the case with anywhere else in the world. We hope that sites such as yours will continue highlighting resources where people can learn more about other cultures. Thanks a lot.
Joshua thanks for stopping in here and leaving your thoughts behind. I completely agree with you about overcoming stereotypes and learning about other cultures. Storytelling is a valuable and powerful tool for this.