#1560. Prejudice - Making "Good" and "Bad" Generalizations

other, level: Elementary
Posted Tue Feb 8 08:09:30 PST 2000 by Jean Van Vliet (RCzerwin@aol.com).
Manalapan - Englishtown Regional Schools, Englishtown, NJ USA
Materials Required: "Teacher They Called Me A ________!" by B'nai Brith
Activity Time: 1 Class Period
Concepts Taught: Multiculturalism/Prejudice Reduction

Objective: Students will be able to make generalizations and identify "good" and "bad" ones.

1. Ask the class: Everyone stand up. (Class responds)
Everyone sit down. (Class responds)
2. Explain that if you wanted the whole class to stand up, you would not want to have to call each person's name. You use a general statement like "everyone". Everyone is a generalization word. (Chart)
3. Call up all the girls to the front of the room and just two boys. Elicit responses to describe them like all or most of the girls are in front of the room. Some, few, or a couple, boys are at the front of the room. Chart as you go along.
4. When you feel like the class has grasped the concept, ask them to write a generalization of their own about what they see in the class. Share.
5. Explain that we need to use fact - based generalizations to describe things but sometimes they are not fact - based. Sometimes they could be bad.
6. Read aloud "Ghengis Khan" from p. 12 of "Teacher, They Called Me A ________!"
7. Discuss why it is a "bad" generalization.
8. Read the rest of the scenarios on p. 12 and discuss what is bad about those generalizations.
9. Let the students write a fictional story about a bad generalization and share.