Changing Attitudes through Art, Literature, and Artifacts: A China Experience
reating an open, supportive enviC ronment to learn about other cultures is one goal of many elementary social studies programs. The National Council for the Social Studies lists culture as one of the ten themes to be studied by all children (NCSS 1994). When students study the various regions of the world, culture is likely to be part of the focus. Yet, teaching culture can be a challenging task for many teachers. How do we build bridges to another culture? How do we motivate students to learn about other cultures and countries so that foreign aspects become familiar and appreciated but not stereotypical? How do we confront the negative attitudes or misinformed belief systems that children hold about other cultures? These were questions that a third grade teacher and I struggled with as we developed our unit “Building Bridges to the Culture of China.” In this article, I describe the activities and strategies that we used to teach one third grade class and provide an analysis of students’ reflections about the changes in their understandings of China.