”Culture isn't just a list of holidays or shared recipes, religious traditions, or language; it is a lived experience unique to each individual.
https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/culture-in-the-classroom https://www.fluentin3months.com/learning-a-language-through-music/
I always hated generalizations. In nursing school, we had cultural competency text books that would make sweeping generalizations about groups of people and how they might behave. And while it may have been true statistically that a randomly selected person from a certain group might be more likely to behave in a certain way, I hated the idea that somebody might judge me based on a generalization.
APRIL is ARAB HERITAGE MONTH . . . but any time is a good time to share your culture!
Bringing a family tradition from home into the classroom is a great way to share culture without feeling forced to speak for your entire community or generalize in anyway. For the last few years, in my daughter’s first grade and second grade class, I have brought in my husband’s family’s Easter tradition of egg battles, or “tapping” so as to be less violent. At Easter, each person finds a decorated hard boiled egg of their choosing and then proceeds to go around the room battling other eggs one at a time. The last egg standing without a crack is deemed the winner. In the classroom, each child was given an egg to decorate with Sharpie markers and then the “battle” happened. The kids loved it and those without egg allergies got an extra snack that day.
I did do some research and created a fun “fact” sheet about this game. You’ll see I go light on the religion or any sweeping generalizations. Here’s the handout I used: PDF: A Lebanese Easter Tradition which just talks about egg tapping. Here is a generic one that talks about coloring eggs with onion peels as well as the egg tapping. Egg Craft and Game. Please use them, copy or cut and paste it!
I also introduced, one of my daughter’s favorite foods (mana’eesh) to her classmates (pre-K-5th grade). I had them mix their own za’atar and olive oil and then spread it on thick pita bread. I then toasted it in a toaster oven and served it back to them with a small dish of labneh on the side. Surprisingly only 2 of 40 did not like it at all, 10 thought it was OK, while 28 kids devoured their share and requested more.
There are also other Arabish activities on this website (https://arabishway.com/treasure-chest/activities/) that, if connected to you somehow (https://arabishway.com/portfolio/chicken-craft/) if you grew up raising chickens, maybe?), could become more cultural than language based. Kids also love seeing their names written in another language (https://arabishway.com/portfolio/mosaic-names/) I also have a short list of fun short stories that could be read in class that are from or about the Arab world: https://arabishway.com/2018/10/22/folktale-for-school/
If you have other ideas that you would like me to try or give feedback on feel free to send them my way (https://arabishway.com/contact-us-2/)
Wishing you luck on your cultural adventures!
