Interested in a group about cultural diversity?

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Permalink Reply by Jared on July 13, 2007 at 7:19pm

I'm in touch with an early primary teacher who is looking to start an international classroom collaboration. He would be very interested in contributing to this conversation. I'll see if I can alert him about it.

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Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on July 14, 2007 at 4:26am

I'd be interested in having this conversation in the Distance Collaborations group. I think there's definite merit in using 2.0 tools to bridge the gaps in cultures...and the most efficicient way to do that seems to be by actually talking together with purpose.

My students in our great plains, "red state" experienced some cultural diversity issues first-hand earlier this year when, in the first 2 minutes of a conversation with a school "back east," they'd already heard a Wizard of Oz reference and our MidWest accents had already been poked fun of (to MUCH giggling and laughing on the other end). While it was hurtful to the girls, it provided a terrific teachable opportunity for me to help them learn valuable lessons about cultural sensitivity without them having to make that gaffe in the future.

btw--people in Kansas really are sick of hearing Dorothy and Toto references. Please stop making them. Secondly, our accents aren't "funny" since newscasters often work HARD to mimic our accents, since they're considered "neutral." I LOVE to watch to the Weather Channel and hear someone slip into a native accent accidentally.

No, my girls aren't only caucasian, but there still seems to be some cultural diversity issues based on well-more than simply race, and perhaps a good series of Distance Collaborations may be a key to addressing these issues? We do have both US and international participants in this group. I'd love to see a thread on this topic to see what the interest is.

Thanks for posting!

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Permalink Reply by Claude Almansi on July 14, 2007 at 5:01am

Thank you so much for your great offer, Ginger: your group already has 45 members, so it makes far more sense to have the discussion there than start a new group. Sorry, I should have thought of it too, but I didn't read all the contents when I went through existing groups before writing this message. I'll apply to/join now.

Best

Claude

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Permalink Reply by Claude Almansi on July 14, 2007 at 9:28am

Thank you, Jared. Looking forward to hearing from your teacher friend.

About the video presentation of Sangi above: I chose it because Pothohari, although not an official language of Pakistan, is still spoken in a vast part of the country. Moreover, in the UK, it is the native tongue of the vast majority of immigrants from Pakistan (1).

(1) For stats and other info, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pothohari_language.

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