VIEWS FROM THE CLASSROOM: Ryan Costello (RU Elementary Education)

                Today at Malemia Primary school we used the LEA approach in my standard 3 classroom as a part of our morning meeting lesson. To start the LEA portion of it we read two different letters from students in third grade in America. First we read one in English and then had our cooperating teacher, John, translate it for the students in Chichewa; we then did the same process for the second letter. After words, with the help of John, we asked them how they would like to respond to the letter. They decided since one of the letters from America talked about the game tag they wanted to respond telling American children about the African game of Fly. The game of Fly is very similar to the game of dodge ball that we have in the States. As the students told John what they wanted to say we wrote it on the board for them; one side in English and the other side in Chichewa. After writing each sentence of the letter on the board we had the students read it out loud, first in English and then in Chichewa. When the letter was completed as a class we all read it together. Then the students were asked to write the letter down in their notebooks in both English and Chichewa. We took two of the handwritten letters to send back to the American students.                 During this process I found myself wondering how American children and African children would get along if one day they were both placed to learn in the same classrooms. Two different cultures, who are almost polar opposites, put into the same learning environment. It is weird to think about because a big part of teaching is teaching students new material from the environment around them. The environment in Africa is much different from the environment in America. I am sure the children would play really well together, but the real question is would they learn well together. This thought process then lead me into another thought: What would happen if American students had to go to an African school and African students had to go to an American school. What would their reactions be? Thinking about it now, when I was in elementary school I didn’t even know very much about life outside of my own life. I knew there were poor people in the world but I didn’t know to what extent, and I definitely didn’t appreciate everything that I had. Now that I am older and have seen developing countries I realize exactly how important it is to teach our students about the world in which they live in. The experience today will help me not only become a better person, but a better teacher as well. As a teacher I will teach my students about diversity and different cultures. My goal is that my students won’t grow up to think that their culture is the “right” culture. Instead I want them to embrace the diversity of cultures around them, and learn the true meaning of acceptance.