Teaching Tolerance

This is a VALUES unit of Reading and Writing tasks to encourage students to be tolerant and accepting of cultural differences.These are great independent centre activities for primary students, and integrate well with my literacy unit, ‘The Widow’s Broom.” I usually teach both together.

Students explore:

• Respecting different values, individual rights and responsibilities
• Recognising and accepting differences
• Identifying forms of discrimination, challenging discrimination and harassment
• What is empathy, inclusion and respect ? Why are they important?

I’ve used four absolutely wonderful photographic books for the main tasks.

These books look at one of 4 themes:

• Family food
• School Playgrounds
• Where Children Sleep
• Children’s toys and prized possessions

There are images of families, children and playgrounds from many countries. These images give so much incidental information about the culture and the way the children eat, sleep and live. There’s much in common: and many differences. Without these books, you could try to find a few similar images that display different ways of life. I find that students relate to photographs of other children.

I’ve also included other QR Codes for other video and website input.

There are worksheets and activities requiring students to:

• Compare and contrast their lives with children of other cultures
• Think about stereotypes
• Study another country (simple research)
• Think, learn and empathise with refugees

I’ve included a final task as an assessment for the unit.