This afternoon we saw a wonderful program of Zulu song and dance. The PTC Creative Arts committee brought us "Thula Sizwe: The Group Zulu" from South Africa with generous funding from the NEF.
Because the group is from South Africa, I asked the children to tell what words they think of when they hear the word Africa. Predictably they said:
animals - tigers, snakes, elephants
savannah
flowers (exotic)
straw houses
beading
drums
I told the children that these were stereotypes of Africa. (Thanks to the fifth grader's wonderful assembly Friday, we learned that stereotypes are ideas about a group or place that is overly general. For example, "all doctors are men" is a stereotype. We also learned that stereotypes can hurt people.)I challenged the children to do a little research tonight (nothing extensive) to find out why these are stereotypes. I'll share the results of our next discussion soon.
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