As we make our whirlwind tour through Canadian citizenship this year, we have arrived at the Great Depression. Perhaps not the most uplifting subject to start right after Christmas Break. Once again, I wanted a way to make this fun and meaningful. While I do my best to make class interesting, pencil and paper work is inevitable and necessary if they want to be able to read and write (or if I want them to be able to read and write). But this was another area where I had the framework of a similar project from another awesome teacher (sharing=survival) and wanted to seize that window of opportunity.
After doing some initial discussion about the Great Depression and its many causes, I randomly passed out character profiles for members of different families. We had everything from a young widow with four children trying to work two jobs, to her housekeeper, to young single men trying to get their first job in a severely depressed economy, to old ladies trying to sew to help their families make ends meet. Everyone had a story, along with a short summary of their job (if they had one) and of how much they made per hour, day, or week. They then organized themselves into their families and began budgeting money for the month. Every week or so, I would give them a new "change of circumstance" - someone might lose a job, or someone might get married, or someone might find money in the street. Either way, these always required a rearranging of the budget or some innovation on their part to make some extra cash. I felt a little bit like the Games Designer from the Hunger Games, I won't lie.
Again, this is a project that required extensive upfront planning on my part, but now runs itself with a little bit of "financial" advice on my part. They've learned about varying hardships that came with that time period, reflected on how such a harsh economic reality affected young people's hopes and dreams, and how responsibilities and the value of a dollar have changed significantly with passing time. Success!
The Roaring 20's and the Charleston
I had them from Speak-easys and Prohibition, but you can't teach the Roaring 20's without talking about the Charleston. And while I may not be a graceful ballerina, anybody can learn the Charleston with a little help from Youtube.
So, we pushed the desks back and dove in. It always amazes me how inhibitions drop when everyone in the room - including the teacher (or maybe especially the teacher) - is expected to look like a knob. Privacy laws prevent me from putting their photos on here, but picture 25+ sweaty 13-year-olds kicking their awkward heels up like 20s flapper girls and you've pretty much captured the awesomeness that this double period offers. And thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio's forays into the Great Gatsby, we even had a modern-day connection.
Social Studies Fun ... Yes, Fun
This year, I have the great joy of teaching Grade 8 French Immersion. I say that with no sarcasm ... seriously. I am privileged to have a wonderful group of students and I am really enjoying the switch from elementary to these [slightly] more independent creatures.
I also have the wonderful job of teaching French Immersion Language Arts and Sciences Humaines (Social Studies in French). While those have always been passionate areas of learning for me, I read again and again on their interest inventories at the beginning of the year that "Social Studies is boring," "I don't like history," "It's just a bunch of dates and stuff," "I hate conjugating verbs" ... and the enthusiasm went on and on. It quickly became my goal to make this historical bunch of boring dates and verb conjugations ... well, fun.
One of the areas I find most challenging in the Grade 8 Social Studies curriculum (Grade 9 in New Brunswick) is government. They're 13. They like hanging out with friends, taking selfies on their iPod touches, and texting their friends when they're not supposed to be. What interest do they have in different levels of government? They're even too young to vote, for Heaven's sake.
Fortunately, we hit on a provincial election year. Yes, fortunately. I saw my window of opportunity, and I just needed to find a way to jump through it without crash landing on the other side. I knew this would be a great chance to showcase different levels of government, talk about citizenship, and learn about our democratic system. However, the last thing I wanted to do was step on toes by getting too political in class.
I decided that students would learn about the different Nova Scotian parties (and in doing so, their Federal counterparts) for the sole purpose of creating their own. They would "register" their own parties, develop their own budgets, establish their own platforms, and create their own brochures. The project would culminate with a leaders' debate, and then the opposing class (we team teach) would vote on October 8th, our provincial election day, and we would elect a governing party in each class. I had jumped through my window of opportunity and had informed myself more than ever before about the different political platforms.
While this was a significant amount of work on my part in preparation, the rest of the project ran itself. This is partly because I truly do have fabulous students. But part of it was also that Social Studies became an engaging, real-life thing to which they could suddenly relate. When debate day came and they dressed in their dresses, shirts, and ties, I was amazed to hear students saying, "I'm here to win this thing." They were so invested in the work they had done.
These were the contents of the envelopes each group received on day one of their project. Part of the excitement for them was the official-looking documents, complete with the NS government logo and all. Maybe that's illegal, who knows? Either way, it was totally worth it to see their reactions.
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