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elleng

(135,687 posts)
Sat May 31, 2014, 11:17 AM May 2014

For Lessons About Class, a Field Trip Takes Students Home

Some of us have more toys and bigger homes than others. We all have a lot in common, but there are certain things that make us unique, too. Let’s talk about those things and celebrate them, even.

This is not standard prekindergarten curricular fare, but it’s part of what the 4- and 5-year-olds at the Manhattan Country School learn by visiting one another’s homes during the school day. These are no mere play dates though; it’s more like Ethnography 101. Do classmates take the bus to school or walk? What neighborhood do they live in? What do they have in their homes? Over the last several weeks, I tagged along to find out.

The progressive private school considers the visits to be one of the most radical things it does. “We knew we needed to talk about social class,” said Lois Gelernt, the teacher who came up with the idea. “It was opening up a can of worms, but if we were never going to talk about who we are and where we come from, the sense of community wasn’t going to be there.”

At first glance, Manhattan Country School seems like an unlikely place to be having that conversation. The school, which starts with the pre-K-aged children and goes through eighth grade, occupies a giant townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, just steps from Central Park. The name evokes clenched-jaw accents and competitive horsemanship, though in reality the older children milk cows and gather eggs on a school-owned farm upstate.

The school is just 43 percent white, and confusion in that realm was what first spurred the home visits about 40 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/your-money/for-lessons-about-social-class-a-field-trip-takes-students-right-back-home.html?hp&_r=0

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For Lessons About Class, a Field Trip Takes Students Home (Original Post) elleng May 2014 OP
I recommended this OP. NYC_SKP May 2014 #1
sounds like show and tell on steroids. mopinko May 2014 #2
 

NYC_SKP

(68,644 posts)
1. I recommended this OP.
Sat May 31, 2014, 02:24 PM
May 2014

This seems an excellent model for progressive early education.

Unfortunately, too often the discussion about class and lifestyle and wealth is simply taboo.

Too often, our educational institutions echo the emphases on wealth, competition, and consumption rather than appreciation and understanding and empathy for others.

mopinko

(71,597 posts)
2. sounds like show and tell on steroids.
Sat May 31, 2014, 02:42 PM
May 2014

and awesome.

back when i was a school mom, we used to have a big parent potluck every year.
it was f'ing awesome. you could bring anything. always some kfc and pizza.
but we had 32 home languages, and many folks were very proud to show off the home cooking.

food builds community. its a naked ape thing.

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