National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)

THEME I: CULTURE

The Influence of Culture

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Description: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity. The study of culture prepares students to answer questions such as: What are the common characteristics of different cultures? How do belief systems, such as religion or political ideals, influence other parts of culture? How does the culture change to accomodate different ideas and beliefs? What does language tell us about culture?

Reflection:

Students need to realize how much culture influences their life and their beliefs. With this, students can examine the areas of their life that culture infiltrates. Students will see that culture helps to determine their religion, clothing, food, art, conception of beauty, and governmental policies. Also, students can begin to see the importance of the relationship between government and culture. Students will see how culture helps to determine what the government makes into law. Students will also see what happens when government and culture collide. They will see that it leads to chaos.

Teaching and including lessons and information involving cultural and cultural diversity can lead to very sensitive issues when a school is not culturally or ethnically diverse. In order to meet the challenges of opening up those little hearts and minds to other beliefs from their own, I planned lessons that, in hopes, made it relevant to students in that they would mostly likely understand by comparing and contrasting what they believe to what others around the world believe. For example, when I began teaching Islam, many students did not know what in the world this religion was about or why, as students, they had to learn this material. In order to make it relevant to them, we discussed a lot of what was going on in the Middle East, more specifically, Iraq. I prepared lessons that focused on the past but tried to make connections to the present, answering those questions of how Muslims’ way of life has made a significant impact on today’s world and society.

After spending two weeks learning and discussing about Islam, students were more conscious and empathetic to different religions and cultures. More importantly, since most of the students are identified or associate themselves with Christianity, I tried to make connections to this belief by comparing this with Judaism while also connecting these two religions with Islam. Since they had already studied the history and culture of these two religions, I used their prior knowledge to make the material relevant. Furthermore, its important to discuss cultural and cultural diversity because everyone is unique, has different beliefs and ways of life. Students need to be aware of their surrounding and sympathetic to those that are different from what they believe.