Diversity

Rachel Karnitz

MSUM Intern 2002-2003

Saint Peter High School

Saint Peter, MN

Description of the Lesson

This diversity lesson is a one week classroom guidance lesson developed by Rachel Karnitz for use with high school students in order to assist the students in learning the importance of diversity awareness and sensitivity. This lesson was adapted from materials distributed by the Anti-Defamation League. This lesson is designed to be presented in a 45 minute period.

This lesson begins by introducing the topic of diversity. Ask students what diversity means to them. If you want, you can write various answers on the board. Next, have students rate themselves on how much they know about diversity by raising their hands. Use a rating scale of 1-5, with 1 meaning you know nothing or very little about diversity, and 5 meaning you know everything there is to know about diversity.

Introduce the activity for today’s lesson, which is called “Name 5.” Each student should be given a worksheet that has 10 boxes, each labeled with the numbers 1 to 5. Tell the students they will be taking a quiz and should work independently. They will be asked to name 5 prominent Americans in 10 different categories. Also explain the following rules:

· Each person decides what “prominent” means

· Names can be used in more than one category

· The people listed can be living or deceased

· Spelling does not count

· No sharing of answers

After the category is read, students will have 60 seconds to write down the names of 5 people. After all 10 categories have been completed, give students an additional 60 seconds to fill in any missing answers. The categories of prominent Americans are as follows:

• Name 5 prominent Americans.
• Name 5 prominent male Americans.
• Name 5 prominent female Americans.
• Name 5 prominent Black or African Americans.
• Name 5 prominent Hispanic or Latino/a Americans.
• Name 5 prominent Asian or Pacific Islander Americans.
• Name 5 prominent Native Americans or American Indians.
• Name 5 prominent Jewish Americans.
• Name 5 prominent Catholic Americans.
• Name 5 prominent self-identified lesbian, gay, and/or bisexual Americans.
• Name 5 prominent Americans with disabilities.
• Name 5 prominent Americans over the age of 65.

There are 12 categories listed and you can choose how many categories you wish to cover, 10 is just a round number. You can also add your own groups according to circumstances or populations in your school. After the final 60 seconds are up, have students raise hands to show who completed all five names in all the categories, then go through each category, asking who completed all five names in that category. You can also do a “post-test” of the students, asking them to raise their hands if they have changed their mind about the amount of knowledge that they thought they had about diversity.

Explain that the lack of ability to name prominent Americans in certain categories does not mean that a person is racist, sexist, homophobic or culturally ignorant. However, it does show how little most of us know about people of various cultures, and how the traditional U.S. educational system has been, and is still, lacking in information about people outside the dominant White, Western-European and usually male structure.

Next, allow time for students to form small groups of 3-4 people to fill in the names for incomplete categories. Come back together as a group and review a few of the categories that the students might need to have filled in, stressing that the collective knowledge of the group is greater than that of any one person. As students name prominent people from a particular category, be sure to have them explain why the person is prominent. Make sure that no one feels blamed for not knowing answers. If you have adequate sources, share prominent Americans from each group.

Next, begin a discussion about the activity and the importance of role models for all people. Include in this discussion the importance of providing diverse role models for youth, particularly role models that challenge stereotypes. Below are some sample discussion questions.

· How did this activity make you feel?

· To what extent was this exercise easy or hard for you?

· What do you think is the purpose of this activity?

· Did you see any patterns in your responses? How many people had all White males for question one? Did certain categories include mostly sports and entertainment figures?

· What does this activity say about the education system in the U.S.?

· What did you learn from this activity?

· After doing this activity, what is the next step you will take in expanding your knowledge about diversity?

· Who are the prominent people we see at work? Learned about in school? See in society? Are these role models relevant for all of us?

As an end to the lesson, be sure to include the idea that this activity does NOT measure whether you are racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. All it measures is your knowledge of names of prominent individuals from a variety of backgrounds.

This exercise also illustrates how little many of us know about people from outside the dominant mainstream culture. Most of us received a traditional U.S. education that was lacking in diverse role models and perspectives. Many of us are hampered by our monocultural education that has provided us mostly with White male role models. While these men are important, and should not be forgotten, eliminated or demeaned, we need to expand our knowledge to include people from various racial, religious, gender, ability, age, etc. backgrounds.

Connections to Related Standards, Competencies and Domains

References and Resources

Anti-Defamation League. (2003, February 23). Name five activity. Retrieved from http://www.adl.org

For Further Information

Rachel Karnitz

MSUM Intern

Email: rlkarnitz@yahoo.com