Diversity / Tolerance: Name Calling / Teasing

I had a student in my office not too long ago saying that other students have been doing some name calling based on their color of skin and ethnic background. I decided to make a lesson out of this since this wasn't the first time I had heard things like this happening. Before I started the lesson, explained to the students that there has been some problems with name calling, teasing, and other things because of students' beliefs, the way they look, the things they have/don't have and etc. I also explained that it isn't tolerated here at school.

For grades 3-6th:

Discuss what it means to "think outside the box."

Handout the Connect the Dots brain buster (page 3 &4). Give the instructions and give then them a clue; "Think outside the box." I gave them about 3 minutes to attempt the problem. After time was up, show them how to complete the problem. Discuss with them the way to solve the problem, you have to think "outside" the box.

Next, show them a picture of the Herman Grid. Ask the students to describe what they see. Let them shout out guesses until someone says they see dots. Explain that at first, we only see the lines and the rectangles. Ask: Are the gray dots really there? The longer we look at something, the more we can see. Relate this to having first impressions. Ask the following:

How can we relate this grid to people?
Have you ever had the wrong impression of someone?
Has someone ever had the wrong impression of you?

Next, read, show, and/or discuss the pictures in the book "Don't Laugh At Me" by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin. (For grades K-2, I explained the problem in the school, read the story and discussed every page, then had the students to draw a picture of what makes them different from others. While they were doing their assignment, I played the CD that comes along with the book, "Don't Laugh At Me." There is two songs, the first is with lyrics and the second is the acoustic version).

Challenge the students to be "thinking outside the box" when they are looking at the pictures. Show the pictures and let the students tell what is happening in each picture. Explain to them that his requires them to look beyond the obvious things we can see.

The classroom discussion was very interesting. I made sure to have the students were looking past the physical differences. For example, the first picture "the one they call a geek," the students noticed he was wearing glasses, but as I let the students keep telling what they see, eventually they noticed that he could be "smart" and could be made fun of because of that, too!

One other point worth mentioning was page about "hey aren't we all?" I made the point that I was taller than most of them, so that makes me tall. However, I was shorter than the teacher, which makes me short. Therefore, I am both TALL and short! That really helped them see the bigger picture!

Overall, this lesson turned out really well and the kids were really able to make the connections I was aiming for.