Unit 6

De-escalation 2: Communication

6c) Communication within the Community

Goals:

The students will…

• Learn how to practice effective communication when there are cultural barriers, and practice dealing with possible barriers (i.e., cultural, racial, ethical) to communication.
• Make connections between their classroom activities and the difficulties that members of different communities/countries/cultures have communicating with one another in the real world.
• Learn the importance of communicating with members of another culture; learn the importance of understanding the cultural forces shaping behavior, where the points of difference are, and how to deal with these differences in a conflict.
• Learn the importance of compromise, and how to reach it through good communication.
• Explore how to reach agreement or common ground without having to compromise core values or cultural practices.
• Apply their community skills to their own community/real life through writing a letter to the mayor expressing the needs of their community.
• Develop their written communication skills through letter-writing.
• Accomplish the personal goal for your classroom for today:________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

The volunteers will…

• Discover how students handle cultural barriers.
• Learn about the issues students face in their communities.

Materials

• Red things and blue things for Suuls vs. Ictholonians.
• Instruction sheets for Suuls vs. Ictholonians.
• Melissa Poe article, enough copies for the whole class.
• Lined paper for letter-writing.
• Peace by PEACE Word Finds, enough copies for whole class.

Methods

I. Opening Activity: Review, Engage, and Introduce Cross-Cultural Communication:

Alien Shoe Tie (15 minutes)

II. Recognizing and Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Communication: Suuls vs Icthalonians (15 minutes)

III. Expressing Community Needs: Letter to the Mayor (30 minutes)

IV. Closing Activity: Word Find

Preparation

• Read over the lesson carefully. Think about cultural barriers to communication and how to overcome them.
• Obtain materials. Photocopy enough Suuls and Icthalonian sheets for everyone to have a copy of one set of cultural rules.
• Prepare red things for half the class, and blue things for the other half (paper clips, pieces of paper; NOT CANDY)
• Photocopy article to distribute to entire class.
• Find extra paper to bring in for letter-writing activity.
• **Take a look at the next lesson, and speak with your classroom teacher at the end of this lesson about having a discussion about racism next week.

I. Opening Activity: Review, Engage, and Introduce Cross-Cultural Communcation: Alien Shoe Tie

(estimated time: 15 minutes)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

Activity Goals:

• Have students use good communication skills to work together towards a common goal.
• Provide a segue into how to communicate with someone from a different culture.

Tell the students that there’s something you’ve been keeping from them. Your coteacher is really an alien. (Caution: some students will believe this is the truth, so make sure to clarify after the game.) Tell the students:

• The alien understands English, but has a very limited understanding of what the words mean.
• The alien is easily bored, so it needs to hear a different voice with every suggestion. The alien is also only able to listen to one person at a time.
• The alien has no idea what a shoe is or what it does. The object of the game is to explain to the alien how to put on the shoe and tie it.
• The alien will take all instructions completely literally.
• If, for example, you tell the alien to pull out the tongue of the shoe, it will pull out its own tongue and wiggle it over his or her shoe. If you tell the alien to put on the shoe, it will put it on, say, its head.

Play the game, with one of the Peace by Peace teachers playing the alien, and the class telling it what to do.

After the students play the game, use the following questions to guide the group in a discussion of the game:

• How did you get the alien to put on its shoe?
• What was hard about communicating to the alien? How did you overcome those obstacles?
• What happened when the alien didn’t understand you? Was it difficult to re-word your instructions? Give examples.
• Are there times when you have difficulty explaining something to others? Why?
• Answer can include: other cultures.
• How do you overcome those communication obstacles?

· Review some of the topics of communication covered in 5a and b, including:

o What is communication and why is it important?

o What is communication’s role in solving conflict?

o What specific methods of communication did we learn the last two weeks?

§ Review silent communication (body language and tone of voice).

o How do we figure out what someone else wants in a conflict, and discuss what we want?

§ Review E.A.R.S. and I-speak.

• Remind students of the discussion begun at the end of 5b on communication’s importance in the community and larger world.
• What kinds of things might get in the way of communication between people who are different/come from different cultures and communities.

II. Recognizing and Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Communication: Suuls vs. Icthalonians

(estimated time: 15 minutes)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

Activity Goals:

• To simulate a real-life situation where kids are forced to overcome cultural differences in order to achieve a common goal (trading).
• To show how people from a different culture might approach the same problem from a completely different perspective.
• To show how it might be possible to reach a compromise without sacrificing elements of your culture, if you can find a way to communicate with another person so they understand where you’re coming from.
• To show how it is possible to compromise on some issues but not others, and explore what can and cannot be compromised about.

In this game, students have to trade “red things” for “blue things.” The problem is that the students with the red things and the students with the blue things each come from different cultures, and they have different social rules they have to follow. The students have to find a way to overcome their differences and communicate in spite of them.

Before the game begins, explain to the class that this game will involve playing the roles of people trading with each other. Remind students of some important general rules to follow when trading, such as:

• NO PHYSICAL CONTACT! (other than attempted handshakes)
• Snatching the red and blue things without being given them by consent is not allowed!
• Keep voices down and behavior calm and focused.
• No running.

Divide the class up into two groups (The Suuls and the Icthalonians).

• One teacher should explain to each group the rules of their culture (whispering so the other group can’t hear) – see materials section.
• Give out the red or blue things (3 per person) and the corresponding sheet reminding the students which rules to follow.
• Make sure the students are totally clear on how the game works and what roles to play BEFORE beginning the trading! It is a good idea to explain once, review once, then ask a few students from the group to repeat the rules just to make sure everyone is clear. The game only works if the students understand and are interested.

After the game is played, discuss the following questions:

• Were you successful at trading? If so, how? If not, how could you have been successful?
• Compromise, communicate, problem solve.
• Review the compromise and problem-solve strategies from Unit 3.
• Were you frustrated by the other person’s culture?
• How did you overcome this frustration?
• Did you keep an open mind and attempt to respect the other culture to make the trade?
• How did you get around your cultural prejudices if you did trade?
• Did you learn about the other culture in the process or did you simply trade?
• What elements of your culture could you compromise on? What could you not compromise on?
• Moral issues are harder, or even impossible, to comprise on.
• How is this exercise related to real life? Do you ever come into contact with people with different customs than your own? How do you overcome those differences?
• What if you want to get something across to someone who may be completely different from you, like the Mayor of New Haven? Would you carefully explain yourself?

**When leading this discussion, stress how it’s important to understand that someone from another culture might be coming with different perspectives. Make sure to stress how you don’t have to get people to change things about their culture, just to EXPLAIN/COMMUNICATE where they’re coming from, so maybe then you can compromise or problem-solve.

III. Expressing Community Needs: Letter to the Mayor

(estimated time: 30 minutes)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

Activity Goals:

• Give students experience with written communication (letter-writing) as a form of expression.
• Encourage students to think critically about what they would like to see changed in their school/neighborhood/community/city, and how they might articulate their thoughts in a letter to the mayor.
• Give the students a sense of empowerment: they are capable of changing things in their lives!

Sum up the lesson before letter-writing by asking such questions as:

• How have we been using verbal and non-verbal communication so far to overcome cultural differences?
• What kinds of issues have we tried to solve? How have we used communication to solve it?

Distribute the article about Melissa Poe, a 9 year old girl who used written communication to make change happen. Read the article out loud as a class. Feel free to skip parts of the article if you have time constraints. The goal is to show students that they can make a difference by letter-writing.

Tell students that they will use written communication to speak to the mayor of New Haven.

· They will write a letter to the mayor telling him what they want changed in New Haven.

· If they can’t think of anything they want anything changed, then they should tell him what they like about New Haven.

· Explain that the letter will be published and sent to the mayor and to all the local newspapers, so it should be done seriously and thoroughly. If they don’t want their letter published, students should let the teachers know.

· They will be using your communication skills to get real world issues addressed

· Remind the class that the mayor might have a different perspective, coming from different place, and they need to explain where they’re coming from and WHY they want what you want.

· Optional: Discuss or brainstorm things the students might want to write about.

It is very important that you complete this lesson and collect letters from a majority of your students since this will actually get published. Make sure to turn the letters in ASAP to one of the co-directors. It is best for you to collect the letters on the same day, but if the students can’t finish the letters in time, ask your classroom teacher to collect the letters when they are completed. Please remember to pick up these letters when you return to your classroom the next week.

IV. Closing Activity: Word Find

(estimated time: left-over)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

If an individual student finishes the letter early, give them a word find sheet to do in the remainder of class time.

BEFORE YOU GO:

· Tell the class when you will be visiting next.

· Discuss with the teacher how your group handled the students and ask for his or her critique.

· Make notes for yourself on how the lesson went.

· **Check with your classroom teacher about having a racism discussion next week.**

MATERIALS INCLUDED HERE:

•  Instruction sheets for Recognizing and Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Communication: Suuls vs Icthalonians.
• Enough copies so each student gets either the Suuls sheet or the Icthalonians sheet.
• Melissa Poe article for Expressing Community Needs: Letter to the Mayor.
• Enough for the whole class.
• Peace by PEACE Word Finds for Closing Activity: Word Find.
• Enough copies for the whole class.

MATERIALS NOT INCLUDED HERE:

• Red things and blue things for Recognizing and Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Communication: Suuls vs Icthalonians.
• Enough red and blue things so each student gets three “things.”
• Lined paper for Expressing Community Needs: Letter to the Mayor.
• Enough for the whole class, plus a few sheets for drafts.

You are a SUUL. You make red things. You want BLUE THINGS.

KEEP IN MIND THE TRADITIONS OF YOUR CULTURE:

1. You are family oriented:
1. ALWAYS ASK HOW SOMEONE’S PARENTS ARE
2. NEVER CONDUCT BUSINESS BEFORE TALKING ABOUT YOUR OWN FAMILY

2. You are affectionate: ALWAYS SHAKE HANDS WARMLY

3. IT IS RUDE TO STAND MORE THAN 1 FOOT AWAY FROM THE PERSON YOU ARE TALKING TO

You are an ICTHALONIAN. You make blue things. You want RED THINGS.

KEEP IN MIND THE TRADITIONS OF YOUR CULTURE:

1. You are very private: FAMILY AND OTHER PERSONAL MATTERS ARE VERY PRIVATE

2. You are very formal: ALWAYS FORMALLY BOW WHEN YOU MEET SOMEONE AND THEN BEGIN DISCUSSING THE BUSINESS AT HAND

3. IT IS RUDE TO STAND CLOSER THAN 3 FEET AWAY FROM THE PERSON YOU ARE TALKING TO

You are a SUUL. You make red things. You want BLUE THINGS.

KEEP IN MIND THE TRADITIONS OF YOUR CULTURE:

4. You are family oriented:
1. ALWAYS ASK HOW SOMEONE’S PARENTS ARE
2. NEVER CONDUCT BUSINESS BEFORE TALKING ABOUT YOUR OWN FAMILY

5. You are affectionate: ALWAYS SHAKE HANDS WARMLY

6. IT IS RUDE TO STAND MORE THAN 1 FOOT AWAY FROM THE PERSON YOU ARE TALKING TO

You are an ICTHALONIAN. You make blue things. You want RED THINGS.

KEEP IN MIND THE TRADITIONS OF YOUR CULTURE:

4. You are very private: FAMILY AND OTHER PERSONAL MATTERS ARE VERY PRIVATE

5. You are very formal: ALWAYS FORMALLY BOW WHEN YOU MEET SOMEONE AND THEN BEGIN DISCUSSING THE BUSINESS AT HAND

IT IS RUDE TO STAND CLOSER THAN 3 FEET AWAY FROM THE PERSON YOU ARE TALKING TO

Melissa Poe

Environmental Activist and founder of Kids F.A.C.E.

HOW IT BEGAN

Melissa Poe was 9 years old when she began a campaign for a cleaner environment by writing a letter to then President Bush. Through her own efforts, her letter was reproduced on over 250 donated billboards across the country.

The response to her plea for help was so overwhelming that Poe established Kids For A Cleaner Environment (Kids F.A.C.E.) in 1989. There are now 300,000 members of Kids FACE worldwide and it is the world's largest youth environmental organization.

ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Poe has also petitioned the National Park Service to implement a "Children's Forest" project in every national park. In 1992, she was invited as one of only six children in the world to speak at the Earth Summit in Brazil as part of the Voices of the Future Program. In 1993, she was given a Caring Award for her efforts by the Caring Institute.

HOW SHE HAS HELPED

Since the organization started, Kids F.A.C.E. members have distributed and planted over 1 million trees! Ongoing tree-planting projects include the creation of Kid's Yards - backyard wildlife habitats and currently Kids F.A.C.E. is involved in the exciting Earth Odyssey, which is a great way to start helping.

WHAT SHE HAS TO SAY

"Starting the club turned out to be a way to help people get involved with the environment. Club members started doing things like recycling, picking up litter and planting trees as well as inviting other kids to join their club."

"We try to tell kids that it's not OK to be a slacker," she explains. "You need to start being a responsible, environmentally friendly person now, pronto, before you become a resource-sucking adult."

– From http://www.justgive.org/html/kidscorner/melissapoe.html.

PEACE BY PEACE WORD FIND

Name:________________________

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WORD LIST: communication, compromise, conflict, cooperation, de-escalation, differences, discrimination, escalation, ethnicity, fear, games, gender, global, international, interpersonal, mediation, national, negotiation, peace, personal, positive, pov, prejudice, pride, race, respect, tone of voice, violence, Yale

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