The Land of Cantdo

Lessons

I taught a handful of lessons this week, but a couple of them really stood out as great lessons I will be able to do (or modify based on what grade level I teach). Tuesday, September 17 was Constitution day so all of the teachers were asked to teach a lesson about the constitution. Mrs. Stacks let me take over this task by reading the "Land of Cantdo" story and discussing it with the students, followed by the "Visitor from Space" activity. "The Land of Cantdo" is a short story about a family who moves to the fictional land of Cantdo (it didn't take the students long to realize the name of this country is pronounced "Can't do", and you'll soon see why as well). In Cantdo the people have no rights like we do in the United States. They can't talk about their government in anyway, they can't assemble in groups of more than two for any reason, unless they are in a line to go somewhere, the can't start a petition, they can't hang up flyers or hand put invitations for an event, they have little to no freedom, and to top it all off, there is only one television program in Cantdo - a show that repeats all of the things you cannot do in Cantdo. When I finished the story many children asked if Cantdo was a real place.  I told them no, and added a question of my own, “do you think there are places like this around the world?”  The all said “NOOOOOO” and were shocked to hear the truth that led to further discussion of our rights in America and how not everybody has those rights.  Reading the “Land of Cantdo” is a very eye opening experience for the students.  It is an activity that could be done with nearly every elementary grade so it is definitely something I will keep as I move forward in my professional teaching career.  We followed the story with a quick Bill of Rights activity.  “A Visitor from Outer Space” puts the children in a hypothetical situation in the year 2020, were an alien population has landed and taken over the United States.  I used my best alien voice to inform the children of their next task.  They had to pick five of the ten rights in the Bill of Rights that they wanted to keep.  If they could not agree on which five, they would lose all ten.  For this activity the students were in groups of three to four and they discussed and debated the case for each right. While they were debating, I walked around the room and played devils advocate for rights they had chosen to leave out – just to fuel some more intense debates within each group.  When every group had picked their top five we did a class vote to see which rights each group thought were most important. The results were as follows:

 

Obviously there were some rights that seemed a little more important than others, but none of the rights received a vote from every group.  It was very interesting to see that freedom of the press was not selected because I would not be able to post anything to this little blog without that right.  Doing this activity made the students really stop to think just how important it is that we have all of these freedoms where we live. 

Habits of Mind

Habit 3: To be perspective-takers, seeking out, valuing and incorporating different viewpoints and positions about learners, learning, teaching and subject matter

With our social studies activity of “A Visitor from Space” the students had to work together to decide which rights they felt were the most important.  Their groups were picked at random, and they had to incorporate the viewpoint of each person in order to fairly decide their five most important rights to keep.  If the students did not listen to and value each other’s perspectives on the importance of each right one was arguing for, then they would have been acting like the rulers of Cantdo.  They would not be allowing their peers to have a voice.  I think reading the “Land of Cantdo” story beforehand only enhances the discussion during “A Visitor from Outer Space.”  It really helps the students understand how great our freedoms in America are, and it makes them truly care about which of the five rights they will vote for. 
 

Wonder Relates to a Specific School Event  

This week we held our first "classroom meeting." During these meetings the students have the opportunity to bring up things going on at school. We started our meeting by only allowing positive comments for the first bit. Many students were eager to share stories of how others treated them nicely, how the new kids were quickly being accepted by their peers and other reasons why fourth grade has gotten off to a nice start. Hearing the positive stories was a very heartwarming experience and just another plus to entering the profession of teaching. 

After the positive comments we allowed the students to share some of their general concerns about the rest of the fourth grade year, along with some common negative things that have been occurring during the school day (students were not allowed to use names for negative behavior). The most frequent complaint was about the "club" a girl had formed at recess. She runs the club and picks who is allowed and who isn't. It has caused many students to become upset and feel hurt. Going into the class meeting we knew of this issue, as it was one of the main reasons we held the meeting, and we were prepared to discuss it at length. We wanted to remind the kids that exclusion was very hurtful and was a form of bullying. We talked about how it was okay for students to call their group a club, as long as they let anyone and everyone join. 

At this point you might be wondering why the class meeting fell under the Wonder section of this post. During our discussion of the club, a student brought up a part in Wonder that addresses a similar instance. An early chapter in of the book focuses on August's first experience eating in the lunchroom. There's only one person who will sit by him, a very sweet girl (who is even a member of the "popular" group) named Summer. The two become quick friends. They are the only two that ever sit at the table and they soon decide to call their table "The Summer Table" and say that. The table is for people with names that remind them of summer. They start to list students and teachers whose names fit the requirement, and then say that even if someone's name doesn't match the criteria of "The Summer Table" they can still sit there as long as they are nice.  The student in my class said that this club at their recess should be more like Summer and Auggie's, where they allow everyone to join. It was so cool to see my student understanding how Wonder stresses the importance of including everybody, and for the students to relate a similar school event to our novel. It was a moment that reassured my confidence that hearing Wonder read aloud will have a positive impact on my students.