Identity

WHO AM I?

WHAT IS MY IDENTITY? 

TWO CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 

1. Our personal identity circle.

The first activity that we developed in Identity class was about reflecting on what aspects of our life affect more in our personal identity. 

First of all, what we had to do is to think about the local (family, friends, local community), national (citizen, politics, media) and transnational aspects (group, urban lifestyle, diaspora) that influence our life. They had to be aspects that affect our personality, because thanks to those personal aspects we are as we are: unique. They were aspects that are important for us in our daily life and that have made an effect and an impact in our way of being, of behaving and in our personal development. 

After reflecting about that, we had to make a circle and to divide it depending on the importance of the aspects that we have chosen. For example, the “piece” about the family could be bigger than the “piece” of local community, depending on how much this aspect influences in our identity. Moreover, we had to paint the circle with different colours, depending on if the aspects were from the local, national or transnational aspect.

After that process, we would have finished our personal circle about the aspects that influence in our identity. In the following picture we can see my personal circle about my identity. As you can see, the most aspects that affect my identity are local, after national and finally transnational. (Local aspects are written with red and coloured with yellow, national aspects with green letters and brown background, and transnational aspects with orange and red). 

Finally, we had to decide what percentages of aspects we have about each group (local, national or transnational). As we can see in the previous picture, in my personal identity circle I have 65% of local influence, 20% of national influence and 15% of transnational influence. So, with those results, I can claim that my personal identity is almost formed by the influence of local aspects. 

After that, we could also put in common our personal percentages with our group work, and then with the whole class, in order to see if the majority of the class have local, national or transnational aspects that influence their identities.

2. One story in different languages.

Once we finished with the previous activity, we carried out another activity to practice and reflect on our different identities. To do that, we divided the class into two big groups. To each group, the teacher gave big flashcards that told a story. 

What we had to do is, taking into account the opinions of each member of the group, we had to order the big flashcards with the images of the story, creating and imagining the plot and the sequence of the story. Each member of the group had to have a flashcard, because each member of the group had to talk and to explain something about the story. 

However, after agreeing about the sequence of the pictures and about what to say to tell the story, the innovative aspect that makes this activity important to work with different identities was that, in front of the other classmates, each member of the group had to tell his/her part of the story but in his/her own mother tongue! 

Doing that, the final result was a big group of students telling a story with different languages, where we had to point to the flashcard or to make voices, gestures, mime or facial expressions to make it a little bit more understandable. With that activity, we could see how each of us has his/her own identity and that we have to see that diversity as a chance to enrich our cultures.

FIVE RESOURCES FOR A MULTICULTURAL EDUCATIONAL SETTING

A video about multicultural education. In my opinion, it is a good video to watch it as teachers, because through different images and little texts it shows us different actions that we can use to involve pupils in different cultures and different aspects that we have to take into account and bear in mind when we are teaching multicultural education: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPgMVQZ2RNY

This video shows us different activities to plan a lesson to teach multiculturalism. In the video it appears a teacher that explains the activities and that puts them into practice with real pupils: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVsQg8pM2CA

Personally, I will recommend watching this video because it is very interesting, useful and practical. The video shows us how a teacher practices with her real pupils a Hello song in four different languages. They sing the greeting song in English, Spanish, Bengali and Chinese, practising and learning basic structures such as Hello and How are you? I really like the video and the song because I think it is a good resource to teach to our pupils multiculturalism and to show them that in other places of the world there are different languages and different greetings: http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=59867

A very interesting file with information, activities, resources and ideas to teach multiculturalism and in the class. However, it is in Spanish:

http://www.digeibir.gob.pe/sites/default/files/publicaciones/Guia_interculturalidad_Elena.pdf

Finally, in this last website we can find lots of links that bring us to other sites full of resources, ideas, games, dynamics and methodologies that we can put into practice with the pupils in order to teach them multiculturalism: http://masterjuanjopenafiel.blogspot.dk/2011/12/como-trabajar-la-interculturalidad-en.html

REFLECTION ON QUOTES

“Globalization at the cultural level has brought about the fragmentation and multiplication of identities and this may require, paradoxically, a return to the familiar.” (Cohen et al.) 

As the quote says, it is true that because of globalization, nowadays we live in a world where lots of cultural exchanges exist. It does not mean that exist more cultures in the world now, if not it means that as consequence of the improvements in the communication today it is easier to meet new cultures and to know what happens in other places of the planet. That’s why actually we know and meet more identities, because we are more interconnected with other parts of the world and with other cultures. On the other hand, migrations have also affected in the multiplication of identities, as in one country we can find different cultures and lot of people from other places of the world. 

However, I do not know if that increase of identities requires a return to the familiar. It is true that, even we live in a globalized world where we have to be tolerant and open-minded to new cultures, we never must forget what our personal identity is, who we are and how we are. It is possible that the quote says that about returning to the familiar because although we are open-minded, although we are integrated in a foreign country, although we travel too much, although we know lots of different cultures or although we live abroad, at least, we will miss our home and our country and we will want to return any day to our familiar and local place because there is where we feel really safe. Sometimes we are scared about the un-known situations and we do not want to live new situations because of our fears. That’s why as we do not know and we are scared, we prefer not to take a risk and to stay in our familiar situation without knowing the world that surrounded us. 

“World citizenship is to be embraced, not feared. New forms of post-national understanding, responsibility, the state, justice, art, science and public understanding can emerge. This in turn can lead to more advanced forms of democracy, liberty and mutuality.” (Beck) 

I totally agree with the first sentence of the quote as I think that globalization and world citizenship should help us to join our hands, to walk together in the same way, to fight together against social and problem issues and to negotiate, because fighting among us and arguing is not a good way to improve our environment. 

On the other hand, about the rest of the quote I think that the new generations of citizens that are growing up are struggling to get better our world and to improve the aspects. Nowadays, I consider that the society is changing and that, consequently, aspects such as democracy, liberty and mutuality are also evolving. That’s why each of us has to contribute giving her/his molehill to help to our society to improve and to get better every day.