Curriculum and Culture

It's strange to realize how much teaching and education is tied to culture.  I see it more and more every day as I teach here in a different culture than my own.  ICSB is an international school representing more than 30 different countries and cultures, but it chooses to use an American style curriculum.  Herein lies the challenge, teaching students of 30 plus cultures using primarily American curriculum that is tied to the American culture.  (I am not being negative or disapproving of my school's choice, but observing challenges it brings.)

Some examples to illustrate:

Math- Currency
Our Math curriculum teaches students to use the United States currency.  Seems normal right.  Yes, if you are teaching in America.  When you are teaching in a country where the Hungarian Forint (HUF or ft) is the local currency it makes it challenging.  Now, with the spread of technology and globalization the need to now some about the currency of the United States is growing more important.  We do spend some time working on it and learning about it.  But not as much as when I was teaching in Minnesota.  Here, I have taught the US coins as they are the most challenging with their names and values.  My students are getting pretty proficient at adding up change.

We focus more on teaching the Hungarian Forint.  It's the currency that they see and use every day.  They are more familiar with it than I am.  And it's a lot easier to learn, in my opinion, since the coins don't have names.  They just call them by the amount it is worth.  There are a total of 6 coins in circulation right now the smallest being 5 ft and the largest 200ft.

It's an exciting challenge to find materials for teaching this content area.  My creative juices have been flowing.  Thankfully, I found play money at a store, and free clip art on-line, with the help of scanners and computers I have created worksheets and games to teach Hungarian Forint to my 2nd graders.  

A game that I adapted for Hungarian Forint.  Originally it is called "Race to a Dollar" using US coins. 

Here's an example of the play money.   A 1000 ft bill is about $5.00

Math -  Measurement

Our math curriculum does a decent job of teaching both standard and metric measurement systems.  I was thankful I didn't have to find or create a lot of resources to teach metric.  However, the metric worksheets provided came with an American cultural bent.  Here's one worksheet on grams and kilograms.  It compares one kilogram to jar of peanut butter.

Now my most of my students, American citizens and non-American citizens, know what peanut butter is.  Some have tasted it.  However, peanut butter is not Hungarian or European.  It is available here but can be challenging to find.  Therefore, this reference of comparing 1 kilogram to a jar of peanut butter was a fail culturally.  

Reading & Literature

We use a curriculum called Journeys.  It is multi-cultural for American culture.  It contains many stories that involve Hispanic characters and culture,  African-American culture and characters, and Native American stories and culture.  I have nothing against multi-cultural stories.  They are important for children and people to learn that people around the world can be similar in ways and different in ways.  God made all people's and all cultures.  They are of value to Him and should be to us.  He is in the process of redeeming each people and culture for His glory by bringing people to worship Him.   However, it is challenging to teach multi-cultural literature where students (mostly non-native English speakers) are expected to read and comprehend in English, a story where they have no prior knowledge or awareness of the cultural references.  I've had to spend extra time on these stories teaching the cultural references and building context for my students to gain understanding of the story.  

A Navajo Story about the craft of weaving

A Native American folktale