This unit was originally designed for whole-class participation in a Year 6 class in Brisbane. The topic of ethnic differences had been raised regularly during classroom discussions and the children were keen to learn more about Asia and broader issues of race relations in Australia, so that they could develop the knowledge and skills to justify or challenge their position on this most controversial issue, eg one boy stated, 'I want to learn more about Asia and the racism that some people suffer in Australia, so that I can understand Asian people better and so that in my own way I can do something to stop the terrible racism.'

Time allocated to the unit was approximately one to one and a half hours per day over a period of five weeks, with additional time made available if necessary through curriculum compacting in other key learning areas for those students talented in a particular area. Students were issued with a passport in which a stamp was placed upon completion of an activity, along with the points earned for the activity.

There are three sets of cards, with different points values, and each student was asked to try to complete a total of at least 100 points. Some cards were labelled AR, if designed to develop knowledge, attitudes and experiences related to anti-racism education. Students were required to select some of these as part of their learning contract, if they or I determined that they needed to build on their existing capabilities in this area.

Once the unit is commenced, students are able to negotiate where they will begin in the set of cards, whether they will be working as an individual or in a group, the varying locations and resources needed to undertake a particular aspect of their work, the time they require or if they wish to negotiate another topic. The cards are displayed in three areas of the classroom, with necessary resources available at a central point.

Objectives: The activities in this unit are designed to:

Knowledge

• enhance students' knowledge of the following written genres: comic-strips, story-boards, travel brochures and itineraries, mass media advertisements, biographies, haiku and Chinese poetry, letters to the editor

• raise awareness of a range of Asian artistic and theatrical techniques

• give students an appreciation of the lifestyles and cultures of Asian peoples

• enhance knowledge of the location, history, geography and issues of Asian countries

• highlight the influences of Asian cultures on the Australian way of life.

 

Skills

• develop skills in the use of the Internet, desktop publishing programs and other software

• expose students to a range of problem-solving, research and survey techniques, eg CPS, diamond ranking method, debate

• enhance students' skills in developing written texts making use of the following genres: comic-strips, story-boards, travel brochures and itineraries, mass media advertisements, biographies, haiku and Chinese poetry, and letters to the editor

• assist students to learn a variety of ways to organise and present findings and information in an interesting manner, both in written form and in oral talks and presentations

• develop skills in the analysis of traditional stories

• enhance thinking and process skills at a challenging level appropriate to the needs of the individual while stimulating creative thinking

• learn some basic transactional words in an Asian language from a traveller's perspective

• identify and discuss features of pictures.

 

Attitudes

• encourage students to analyse issues from varying perspectives and provide opportunities for critical thinking and establishing bias in text

• foster in students the ability to self-evaluate, to take self-initiated action and to believe in themselves as capable of intelligent choice, independent learning and problem solving

• encourage students to use a journal to trace their personal and academic development and to think about their thinking

• allow students to experience and appreciate Asian festivities and cultural practices

• equip students to recognise prejudice, stereotyping, racism and causes of conflict, and to negotiate solutions for these

• support students in expressing their feelings and opinions

• build positive attitudes toward culturally sensitive travel as an opportunity to build relationships with people of diverse cultures

• appreciate the interdependence of the countries of the world.

 

Activities

Set A (worth 10 points each)

1. Write a letter to a student from an Asian country, to send via the Internet, asking about: his/her school day, his/her family life, food, entertainment/leisure time etc.

2. List some myths and legends or traditional stories from Asia. Read one of them and choose to:

(a) read or retell it in person or on tape, or

(b) construct a story map, comic strip or story-board, ensuring that the sequencing is correct.

3. Invite a visitor to demonstrate an Asian martial arts activity or to show how traditional Asian costumes are worn. Find out the Asian words they need to use.

4. Write some interview questions for a person who has travelled to an Asian country.

5. Collect a range of resources and materials about Asia, to be kept in the Learning Centre.

6. Brainstorm as many Asian countries as you can, then add to these using an atlas. Locate and label these on a map, calculating their distances from Australia.

7. Find out the airlines that fly from Asia to Australia. To which Asian cities does Qantas fly? To which countries do most Australians travel? Which Asian countries require a visa? Which vaccinations are needed to visit Asian countries and why?

8. Listen to an audiotape of some poetry on racism. Produce a piece of artwork in response. AR

9. List the populations and areas of a variety of Asian countries. How would your life change by moving to an Asian city with a very large population?

10. Find out about means of transport in Asia that are different from those in Australia, eg elephants, tuk tuks, rickshaws, trishaws, dragon boats, bullet trains. Prepare a mural of these.

11. Prepare a twenty-question quiz on an Asian country of your choice.

12. Australia makes use of various Chinese medical techniques. Look at the Health and Fitness Centres in the Yellow Pages of a city phone book and find advertisements for the practice of Chi Kung, Shiatsu, etc. Find out what each one is.

13. Research five of Asia's most famous tourist attractions.

14. Define, in your own words, prejudice, stereotyping and racism. AR

15. Tape record your efforts to learn some words, a song or other interesting facts in an Asian language.

16. List the names of as many Asian companies and their products as you can.

17. Tell about the mythical creatures which exist in traditional stories and folklore in Asian cultures.

18. Find six basic facts on an Asian country to list in short form on a mobile, with suitable illustration.

19. Paint an urban and a village scene from your Asian country.

20. Read or view the Ramayana and make a list of the sets of rules and responsibilities that Rama and Ravana live by.

21. Make a collage using newspapers and magazines, reflecting the diversity of the world's people. How would you describe a human to a visitor from space, distinguishing between those from a range of countries and continents? AR

 

Set B (worth 15 points each)

1. Write a biography of the achievements of a famous Asian person in history or modern society, OR of a prominent Asian&endash;Australian.

2. Find out about a family's lifestyle and housing in an Asian country of your choice, comparing traditional and modern life.

3. Give examples from your experience or from newspapers where prejudice, stereotyping or racism have occurred. What effects did it have?

4. Buddhist temples and shrines are constructed in five layers. These layers symbolise the five elements of Buddhist faith. Each element has a symbol: Earth (a square), Air (an oval), Fire (a circle), Water (a horizontal line) and Wisdom (a vertical line). Design, draw and label your own colour diagram of a temple to include these elements and their symbols, then compare yours with photographs of an actual Buddhist temple.

5. Survey commonly used products in the home that are produced in Asia. Classify the products in some way. Make a display connecting them to their place of production, using a map of Asia.

6. Collect newspaper and magazine photographs of some local, national or global conflicts. Caption them with a series of questions about what might be happening in the photo and what the people might be thinking or feeling. Discuss the answers to your questions with a partner. AR

7. Look at pictures illustrating different types of clothing. Explain the similarities and differences in the clothing. What function does clothing have in all cultures? Why do clothing styles differ? Which differences do matter and which do not? What might be the good things about these differences? AR

8. Develop a set of instructions on how to play a traditional Asian game and present these in a big book so that they can be played at any time with your classmates.

9. Investigate Asian kite-making techniques and make a kite of your own. Explain why you chose this design.

10. Conduct an investigation into which Asian countries members of the school community have visited. Construct a graph in an interesting format to show this information.

11. Calculate the amount of money you will need for a three-week trip to Asia and work out in what form this money should be taken.

12. Prepare models, dioramas or paintings about religious buildings in Asia. Display the etiquette required when visiting these places of worship.

13. Redesign on paper an area in your home according to the principles of Feng Shui.

14. Weigh your food for a day. How does it compare with the amount a panda eats? How much food would a panda eat in one year, compared with you? Use a line graph to plot the average weight of a panda and a human baby from birth to six months.

15. Write some traditional haiku or Chinese poetry to reflect the weather outside your classroom window.

16. Find out the time in a variety of Asian countries when it is 11 am in your part of Australia.

17. Make a list of five things you think a person in your class likes or dislikes, while asking her/him to make a list separately. Compare the lists. For which of the following groups do you think your guesses would be most and least accurate, and why: a younger person in your school, a person your age in the USA, a person your age in India, a person your age who does not go to school because required to work. AR

18. Identify some Asian contributions and activities which have helped our understanding of mathematics.

19. Asia is a large continent and contains many of the world's great rivers. Millions of people depend on these rivers or believe they are sacred. Report on at least three of these rivers.

20. Research the meaning of 'yin' and 'yang' in Chinese religion. List ten things you think would be yin and ten things that would be yang.

21. Research traditional Asian art styles. Find examples and produce an inventory of everything you see in a painting. Compare and contrast it with a Western painting. What do you like and dislike about it?

22. List the similarities and differences between school life in Australia with that in a chosen Asian country. Include such things as age at each level, time spent at school each week, subjects studied, choices after primary school, after school activities and the Pluses, Minuses and Interesting points of each system.

 

Set C (worth 20 points each)

1. Create a board game based on an aspect of Asian history or on a traditional Asian story.

2. With a partner, present two different sides of the following argument: 'It is easier to understand another culture than to be prejudiced.' AR

3. Invent your own country. Decide what it will be called, compose a national anthem, design a flag; describe its geography, weather, resources, customs and culture, starting with a list of basic needs. Make a model of your country. AR

4. Write and perform a play based on a traditional story from Asia.

5. Write an adventure story set in Asia where you have an encounter with a powerful Asian being.

6. Design a travel brochure to advertise a 21-day itinerary through an Asian country or countries. List mode(s) of transport, attractions, route taken, dates, prices and accommodation.

7. Dramatise a world peace meeting in the year 2000. Consider: Who will be present, items on the agenda, possible problems and conflicts and some possible solutions. AR

8. Create a puppet or masked play in one of the Asian traditions. Design and make backdrops, lighting, music and sound effects.

9. Read a story about a family living in a culture different from your own. What knowledge, skills and attitudes would you need to learn to join them in their life for a while? Compile a big book containing a travellers' code of good manners including suitable phrases in various Asian languages to assist in travelling with ease throughout Asia using the correct etiquette. Use Internet sites and other resources to assist in this task.

10. Buddha taught that people had to control their selfish desires by following the eight-fold path or middle paths which require: right understanding, right resolve, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness and right meditation. Think about these rules. Identify a problem in our school or elsewhere and apply the rules of the eight-fold path. How do they resolve the problem?

11. Create your own acrostic about racism, prejudice and stereotyping. AR

12. Rewrite the Ramayana as a story for small children, as a television news item or as a current affairs program item.

13. Design a set of fabric squares to tell about your knowledge, attitudes and experiences of Asia near the completion of this unit. Sew these pieces together, individually or as a group, to display as an Asian quilt.

14. Set up a simulated food stall and role play the bargaining process, using some Asian language phrases.

15. Imagine you are a credit card belonging to a person who has just returned from a three-week holiday in Asia. Describe the places you visited and the adventures you had.

16. Invent a new product for a particular Asian country. Illustrate what it looks like. Compose an advertisement for this product, keeping in mind that your clients are Asian. Your advertisement may be in the form of a chart, video-clip or taped recording.

17. Create your own crossword or find-a-word on any aspect of Asia.

18. Interview members of your local community who have migrated from Asia. Prepare brief biographical profiles and display them in the classroom, or print them within a leaflet or magazine about Asian&endash;Australians.

 

Bibliography and Resources

Asia Education Foundation (1995) Studies of Asia: A Statement for Australian Schools. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

Asia Education Foundation (1995) Studies of Asia: Participant Manual. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

Bailey, S., Knight, B.A. & Riley, D. (1995) Developing Children's Talents: Guidelines for Schools. Cheltenham: Hawker Brownlow Education.

Brewer, W. (ed.) (1995) Many Flowers: Folk Stories from Asia. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

Dalton, J. (1988) Adventures in Thinking: Creative Thinking and Cooperative Talk in Small Groups. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson.

Davis, G.A. & Rimm, S.B. (1994) Education of the Gifted and Talented. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Department of Education, Queensland (1993) Studies of Asia: An Asian Experience. Brisbane: Government Printer.

Department of Education, Queensland (1993) Studies of Asia: Young People in Asia. Brisbane: Government Printer.

Dysart State High School (1993) Youth Week Poetry Anthology. Queensland: Dysart State High School.

Fraser, J. (1993) Sandwiches and Sushi. Australia: Macmillan Education.

Fraser, J. (1993) Visiting Ghosts and Dragons. Australia: Macmillan Education.

Hamston, Pigdon & Woolley (1995) To Market. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

Haslam & Doran (1995) Japan: The Hands-on Approach to History. Britain: Two-Can.

Hegarty & Stephens (1995) Images. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

Kalantzis & Cope (1987) Cultural Differences. NSW: Common Ground.

Kalantzis & Cope (1987) Human Needs. NSW: Common Ground.

Kalantzis & Cope (1989) Prejudice, Stereotyping and Racism. NSW: Common Ground.

Kiernan, J. (1995) 60 Degrees to 170 Degrees East. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

Maker, C.J. (1982) Teaching Models in the Education of the Gifted. Rockville: Aspen.

Queensland Department of Education, Capricornia Region (1994) Combating Racism and Prejudice Kit. Queensland: Government Printer.

Watson (1995) School's Out. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

Watson, Asano & Ward (1995) Our Home. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

 

Kathy Canavan teaches at Ashgrove State School in Brisbane.

©TalentEd is located at the School of Curriculum Studies, University of New England, Armidale, Australia.

This page updated: 23 January 2006 Webmaker: Howard Smith. hsmith4@une.edu.au