In the lead up to Harmony Day on March 21 2018, our year 4 students
will be exploring the diversity within their own classroom. As a class, we will
discuss what diversity is and why it is important as a society to embrace it. We
will be looking at the different cultures within our classroom and our
community within the school. While Harmony Day is a national celebration, the
topic of celebrating diversity fits within our planned unit of “Identity and
Belonging”, aligned with the Australian Curriculum: HASS (Australian Curriculum
Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2016).
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| Australian Curriculum: HASS - Outcomes for Knowledge and Understanding - Year 4 (ACARA, 2016) |
Each student will be exploring their own culture and
identity through an inquiry unit, where they will need to explore their own
culture and how this relates to their identity. This unit of work is also to
assist the students in how they will be presenting their own identities on
Harmony Day.
Harmony Day
is a celebration that comes from the United Nations International Day for the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Department of Home Affairs, 2017a), which
was developed due to a global culture of racial discrimination. With Australia being a
popular place for immigration, our community is a varied, multi-cultural one,
and as a school, we believe it is important to provide our students with the
tools needed to celebrate the diversity of the community in which they live.
Our school’s
Harmony Day celebrations involve so many different aspects of so many different
cultures. We ask that students come to school in clothing that represents their
culture, and as a school, we believe that it is important for our students to
understand what their cultural identity is and how that they can celebrate it
on this day. We also ask for students to bring a plate of food that represents
their culture, and we will hold a gold coin donation food festival, where
students, staff and parents are able to have a taste of food from all over the
world. These activities are seen in many different schools on Harmony Day
across Australia (Department of Home Affairs, 2017b).
Our in-class
activity will ask that each student create a visual representation of their own
personal cultural identity.
To do this, students may need to ask their parents about where their family is from and for some indications of the parts of their life that make up your families culture. In order for students to begin this activity, we ask that you as parents answer any questions that may come up at home to the best of your abilities. There will be opportunities for students to research events and activities but we ask that parents assist in providing a starting point for their research. This task will assist the students in developing an understanding of their own identity and after presenting their work to the rest of the class, each student will have a greater understanding of the cultures and identities of their classmates. This will form part of the Achievement Standards for the HASS Curriculum (ACARA, 2016).
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| Identity Collage examples (Girling, 2018) |
To do this, students may need to ask their parents about where their family is from and for some indications of the parts of their life that make up your families culture. In order for students to begin this activity, we ask that you as parents answer any questions that may come up at home to the best of your abilities. There will be opportunities for students to research events and activities but we ask that parents assist in providing a starting point for their research. This task will assist the students in developing an understanding of their own identity and after presenting their work to the rest of the class, each student will have a greater understanding of the cultures and identities of their classmates. This will form part of the Achievement Standards for the HASS Curriculum (ACARA, 2016).
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| Australian Curriculum: HASS - Civics and Citizenship Achievement Standards - Year 4 (ACARA, 2016) |
Word count: 502
References:
Australian
Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (2016). The Australian Curriculum: HASS (Version
8.3), Year 3-6, all curriculum elements, all curriculum dimensions. Retrieved
from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/humanities-and-social-sciences/hass/
Department of Home Affairs. (2017a). About. Harmony Day. Retrieved 14 March 2018, from https://www.harmony.gov.au/about/
Department of
Home Affairs. (2017b). Harmony Day Schools Event Planning Kit.
Department of Home Affairs. Retrieved from
https://www.harmony.gov.au/get-involved/schools/schools-event-planning-kit/
Girling, H. (2018). Identity Collages. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/p/BfRqUshjJ1M/
United Nations.
(2018). International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,
21 March. United Nations. Retrieved 14 March 2018, from
http://www.un.org/en/events/racialdiscriminationday/
I like how you integrated Harmony Day into the classroom and turned it into lessons that definitely have the potential to stem beyond HASS and include other curriculum areas and open the students’ minds to cultures and histories they may have never heard of before. I also thought the strong involvement of parents was and would be beneficial to the learning and was a nice was to involve them.
ReplyDeleteCould you put in images of what other schools/previous years have done for their activities on Harmony Day, maybe as an example to show the parents what may be expected in regard to food and clothing? The word ‘stems’ is within one sentence twice, maybe an alternative word?