Help
For "They Won't Let Me Play With Them!
By William Kridler
"They won't
let me play with them!" How many times have you heard your students
say that? In a caring, peaceable classroom, no one should feel like
an outsider. But despite our best intentions, many children do. While
there's no magic cure for the persistent problems related to exclusion,
there are ways to address them with your students. Here's how to set
standards and expectations, and how tofollow up on them throughout the
school year.
The Peaceable Person
Profile
To help students understand
what makes a peaceable person, have a volunteer lie down on a 4-by-7-foot
sheet of mural paper and ask classmates to trace his or her body. Then
ask the class what behaviors, attitudes, and actions they think contribute
to a climate of caring in the classroom. Have students take turns writing
these positive attributes inside the outline of the peaceable person.(With
younger children, do the recording yourself.) As kids write down their
thoughts, ask them to give examples of what they mean by helpful, courteous,
and so on. If no one comes up with any qualities related to including
others, ask,"In our classroom, what would a peaceable person do if someone
wanted to playwith him or her?"
Now have the group
write outside of the outline all of the negative behaviors,attitudes,
and actions that they don't want as part of the class. Finally, ask
children if they can agree to use the attributes of the peaceable person
to guidetheir behavior. Post the peaceable person as a visual contract
for you andstudents. Whenever a positive or negative behavior occurs,
kids can point it out on the outline.
Editor's Note:
The previous activity is adapted from Youth Leadership inAction
by Project Adventure.
Playing for Empathy
Books That Bind
There are many children's
books that address the pain of exclusion and the benefits of inclusion.
For younger children, try Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow,
1991) and Oliver Button Is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola (Harcourt
Brace, 1979). The themes are explored for older children inThe Hundred
Dresses by Eleanor Estes (Harcourt Brace, 1974) and Thank You,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by Eleanora Tate (Bantam, 1992). For your
own reading, Vivian Gussin Paley's You Can't Say You Can't Play (Harvard
University Press, 1992) is a thought-provoking account of a teacher'sattempt
to deal with exclusion in her classroom.
One Teacher's Strategies
"In 15 years of teaching
I've seen a lot of excluding and a lot of hurt feelings," says third-grade
teacher Margaret Bruell of Carlisle, Massachusetts.So last year she made
inclusion one of the themes of her classroom.
First, she raised
the issue of exclusion in a class meeting. "I had observed a situation
in the cafeteria where a second grader told another that she couldn't
sit with her. We discussed the incident as a class, then I had children
work in pairs to list reasons why the girl might have turned away her
classmate. Then we discussed why people exclude others."
Margaret raised
the issue in other class meetings, discussing actual incidents of exclusion
and inclusion, and she had children write responses to the following:
- Tell about a
time when you were excluded or included at school.
- Why do you think
people exclude one another?
- Are people more
likely to include or exclude others in our school?
Margaret also tried
story starters that described an incident in which a child asks to be
included. The children shared their stories in class meetings.
"This is not a problem
that is remedied very quickly," Margaret admits. "That's why it's so
important to keep bringing it up. The more kids think about it, themore
likely they are to change." Margaret adds, "Remember to listen to children
instead of lecturing. Exclusion has lots of causes and listening to
children's experiences can help you get to the bottom of them." Then,
she advises, "Have students share their feelings about exclusion and
inclusion. It's one way to help kids develop empathy. I saw many of
the children become more sensitive to excluded children. One boy who
was severely excluded had a couple of friendships by the end of the
year."
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