Global Citizens

Global Citizens

Global citizen begins in the classroom with connections and collaboration with peers and expands outside of the classroom and around the world. Global citizen allows students with the opportunity to grow global empathy. Empathy in the classroom provides students with a positive experience. It builds positive culture and helps students to work with others in order to bring the community together.

Students with empathy are able to learn to understand each other and build thrusting friendships. In the classroom we have students of all different cultures. We have students from China and Serbia. These students are ELA students. Their social economic background is different from ours which helps us to build stronger empathy skills. As a teacher we play an important role for students. We help students develop and display empathy. It’s important for us to us to be able to equip our young students to be future leaders of our communities and way beyond.

Global citizen takes place through academics, social curricula, local, national, global initiative and collaboration with partnerships with other schools.

Read aloud is a way for students to see the world around us. Students are able to listen to stories and see how other students live in other countries. This also allows students to understand events taking place around the world and reflect on how they feel about what other students are facing.

I want my students to have the opportunity to collaborate and interact with other children around the world. I am fortunate enough to have a little cousin in Italy the same age as my students. It makes sense for me to teach my students a culture that I’m very familiar with and speaks the language fluently. I speak Italian fluently and I also can write in Italian. I have traveled to Italy many times and also studied Italian in school for eight years. I am able to teach my students about my culture and extend their learning by collaborating with other children in Italy.

I start off by reading a book to my students about Italy and the Italian culture. This is a great way to demonstrate the connections between the Italian culture and the culture in America.

After we read the book we put a list together of things we learned about Italy from the book.

Italian Traditions

• Anytime you walk into an establishment you always greet with a hello.
• Families eat together at large tables
• Opera is popular in Italy (opera tells stories using music and song to create an emotional reaction from the audience)
• Soccer is a popular sport in Italy
• Italy is shaped like a boot.
• Italians kiss on both cheeks
• Italians are known for pasta, pizza, cheese and good food.
• Roma is the capital of Italy
• Color of the Italian flag (red, white, green)

I made sure that my students had access to many different books about Italy.

The next day during morning meeting I had my students greet each other in Italian by shaking their friends hand and saying “Buon Giorno” which means good morning. Buon Giorno is a formal way of saying hello. An informal way would be “ciao”. You would say ciao to a friend or family member. Ciao can be used as both hello or goodbye.

I also show my students an application called Google Earth in which we can find a specific location in Italy. I’m going to focus their attention to a little town called Avellino in Italy. Avellino is where my family comes from and it’s located in Southern Italy is surrounded by mountains. There are approximately 55,000 thousand people that live in Avellino.

Comparisons:

6.9 million people in Massachusetts

685,094 people in Boston, Massachusetts in which Boston is the MA capital and largest city

New York, has 8.623 million people

Chicago has 2.716 million people

Another way for students to learn more about the Italian culture is through a Youtube video. A fun video that is age appropriate is called, “Italy Facts for Kids-Cool, Fun Italy Facts!’

During writers workshop students wrote about what they learned about Italy and drew pictures. I

played Italian music in the background for students from an application called Radio Garden.

Every culture has their own type of music. In America we have rap, jazz, country, rock, classical and hip hop. In Italy they also have similar music such as pop, classical, rock, hip hop and opera. Music unifies all races and has been used throughout the world for enjoyment, pleasure and different occasions.

Playing music in the background with students are working really helps students with stress, performance, making them feel happier, helps with learning and memory skills and it is relaxing. Someone once said, “music can change the world because it can change people”.

Lastly, global citizen really takes off when you are able to communicate with other students from a different countries. I explained to my students that we are going to build a relationship with a little six year old boy that lives in Avellino, Italy. I have already showed them on Google Earth whereabouts he lives. We are going to communicate with him through an application called WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is a free application that you can download onto your iPhone or computer. You can send text messages, voice messages, video, photo, voice call or video calls. It’s a great application that allows me to stay connected with my family and friends in Italy.

Students and I communicate with Angelo from Italy several times throughout the year. He is a six year old boy who attends Kindergarten. We teach each other different things. My Kindergarteners taught him how to count 1-10 in English. Angelo taught my students how to count 1-10 in Italy.

Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto, nove, dieci

Reflection:

I really enjoyed teaching my students about a different country and language.  Technology makes this all possible for us.  Students learned so much in just a few weeks.  They enjoyed being able to watch YouTube videos and communicating with children in Italy.  I feel that we need to bring the fun back into learning.  When students are enjoying what they are learning, it has more meaning for them.