Keep On Mixing
Author: Teaching Tolerance Staff
Source: Teaching Tolerance
Published: November 3, 2016
Key Points:
- Briefly discusses the National Mix it Up Lunch Day that previously happened on October 25. On this day, students are encouraged to sit with other students they do not usually sit with during lunch and learn something new about them or their history, ethnicity, race, or culture. The idea is to address pervasive social divisions and help others learn more about what varieties and types of people exist in our own communities.
- The goal of the article was for schools and teachers to continue mixing it up in the classroom all year. Students should constantly be mixing it up and learning about their peers and the experiences they have to share and expand curriculum.
- The article produced many examples and links to where teachers can mix it up in their classrooms and within the curriculum.
Relevance:
Teachers everywhere will have students from different places, backgrounds, cultures, race, etc. It is a good technique to teach students how to embrace differences and to encourage them to learn about other people. Each child brings something different and new to the classroom, it should be embraced by the teacher and their peers. Mixing it up in the classroom should be a norm, especially to form strong relationships with the students and let them know they do matter and so does where they came from or home life.
I love this idea! What a great concept of encouraging students to branch outside of their comfort zone and interact with others. We encourage tolerance daily in our class. Each day we talk about what the word means to them, when they have seen tolerance in their communities, and even when they have had to practice tolerance in a time when it was extremely difficult for them. It is easy to stay comfortable and interact with individual you already know, it is not each to go beyond and get to know individuals you are not so sure about. Working in special education, I appreciate the concept of “keep on mixing” because it encourages general education students to interact with students with special needs and more importantly vice versa. I want to put this event on my calendar for next year so I can get my future students involved and continue to encourage them to practice tolerance!
ReplyDeleteThe students I work will "mainstream" with PE, music and lunch. Because of this we encourage them to invite someone over to join them for lunch. The whole school has assigned seating, but there is a weekly exception (and an exception for our class-to encourage social skills). It is great to see them use their skills in communicating with other students. I also enjoy seeing general ed students get to know our students. Fear isn't there and the students trust us (the staff) and the students to make safe and appropriate choices. It really helps the flow of our students' day. They love interacting with others.
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