I finished my first official week of classes. One class was finishing a unit on violence in the US. This was really interesting, since France has really strict gun laws. It's difficult for the French to understand the second ammendment. It's also startling how many people die from firearms each year - over 11,000 in the US. That's more than 40 per day. Half of the people who die are between the ages of 10 and 24. It's 
hard to be a representative of the US in this context. I can do nothing but lament this sad reality. At the same time, the teacher who was teaching this class gave the students a story about how teachers brought guns to school in a small town in Texas (population 300). This was an unfair representation. I tried to explain that in the northeast, I knew only one person with a gun and it scared me the first time I fired a pistol (which was only last year). I also tried to explain that gun-related violence affects different populations disproportionately -blacks are twice as likely to die from guns than whites - red and blue lines on graph.
I also taught a class that was doing a unit on English advertisements. For the other classes; I talked about Chicago (sports, deep dish pizza, etc) and the United States in general, which included drawing lots of improvisational maps of the US on the chalkboard (yes, chalkboard - not whiteboard) -- good thing I paid attention in geography!
hard to be a representative of the US in this context. I can do nothing but lament this sad reality. At the same time, the teacher who was teaching this class gave the students a story about how teachers brought guns to school in a small town in Texas (population 300). This was an unfair representation. I tried to explain that in the northeast, I knew only one person with a gun and it scared me the first time I fired a pistol (which was only last year). I also tried to explain that gun-related violence affects different populations disproportionately -blacks are twice as likely to die from guns than whites - red and blue lines on graph.I also taught a class that was doing a unit on English advertisements. For the other classes; I talked about Chicago (sports, deep dish pizza, etc) and the United States in general, which included drawing lots of improvisational maps of the US on the chalkboard (yes, chalkboard - not whiteboard) -- good thing I paid attention in geography!
I would like to see photos of your maps of the USA. I want to know what these kids are learning. The USA from the mind of Amanda Daly...
ReplyDeleteThe violence thing is really tough to explain over there. The Culombine shootings happened while I was over there and I remember my host mom asking me if everyone in the US had guns. I said no, but of course while not everyone owns guns there are a lot of people who own many. It may not be the most fair example to use those teachers from Texas, but it's not entirely unfair either. I think the key is to focus on the concept of freedom in the US, the sheer size of the country and the diversity. Lax gun control is a really tough thing for the French to understand though.
Keep up the good work representing, Teach!