It's Rosh Hashanah.

[conuly]

Those of my friends who celebrate, of course, have a good holiday and a happy new year. And those who don't, well, enjoy the next two days anyway. Any day is a good day for apples and honey :)

Interestingly, in a tangent from a conversation I'm having with leora right now, I'm quite impressed that the Kindergarten standards for Social Studies in NYC say that by the end of the year your average Kindergarten student should be able to "identify with his or her ethnic background" and there's something in there about being able to identify and enjoy ones traditional celebrations, food, stories, etc.

Perfectly correct, if you ask me - but I wonder, is this something common to most of the country? Or is it only common to areas like NYC, with high immigration?

Comments

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

Foreigner here - and I can't speak for all of the country, but pretty much everyone I know in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia did some sort of "Canadian Mosaic" unit around Grade 3 that involved making a family tree, bringing in food from your family's culture, etc. As someone with both a legal and a biological father, and six ethnic backgrounds in the family, none of which I really 'belonged' to, I personally found it an excruciating month - I couldn't say I was X because I didn't speak the language, I couldn't say I was Y because I didn't practice the religion, I couldn't say I was Z because that side of the family didn't acknowledge me, and I couldn't say I was N because I wasn't the right colour.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I doubt any of the schools I went to would touch on ethnic backgrounds with a ten foot poll. We certainly did nothing like this. And I remember once when there was some free time in Middle School one of the students brought up the issue of religion and asked for a show of hands in the class to see how many of us were which religions. None of us minded, but boy did the teacher look incredibly uncomfortable. Turned out to be about half Jewish, half Christian in the class. That was fairly representative for the neighborhood.

Absences from class for the Jewish high holy days were common, and something might be mentioned about a teacher being absent on an upcoming day or how there wouldn't be as much of a lesson that day as too much of the class would be gone (I don't know what the classes were like, as I was absent for them), but other than that, we avoided the topics.

I think our school had the attitude of: you try to keep culture as much out of school as possible so that nobody can be excluded or offended and let them do that at home. You do not have them sing songs from any religion or holiday, no plays that touch on such things, just stay away from the issue.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

I would add (sorry if you already know this) that The Canadian Mosaic is a big thing in Canada. It was pretty much invented in opposition to the American Melting Pot metaphor, with the idea that we celebrate our differences, and thus why it's a part of a lot of curricula.

Of course, it's come under controversy in recent years. On the one hand, it does try to discourage a "fit in or get out attitude" (though it's really not successful) but on the other, it's criticized as not nurturing a national identity, especially for our many transracial and second- and third-generation Canadians, leaving all Canadians sort of sullenly grasping at "Well, we're not Americans and we're not British..."

[leora.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I can definitely see some good intent in that.

I just generally think any sort of family tree making is likely to lead to problems for some kids.

I do, however, like the idea of teaching that people are different, have different cultures, and come from different families - and that's okay.

[conuly]

LOL. When my sister was in, like, the third or fourth grade, she had an assignment to bring in her family tree "from when your family arrived in America". This is New York, her teacher clearly only expected parents and grandparents, maybe great-grandparents to be on that tree.

Alas for Jenn, our father's family is not from New York. They've been in the US since before the Revolution!

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I remember being reprimanded by my teacher for leaving the date blank for when my grandmother's branch of the family had come to Canada - though she semi-graciously took it back when I informed her that my grandmother was Native.

My other issue with the family tree was that we were supposed to put down all the relatives we knew about, and one set of my grandparents had nine and twelve siblings respectively. I was a little short on horizontal space.

[conuly]

This is when one discreetly lies and claims one has a small family. My mother occasionally brings up that story and wonders aloud why her suggestion of "Just count back three generations and stop, nobody cares" took so long to be heeded.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

That's very good advice. My family tree ended up being very wide but short, given that neither of my parents could name all four of their grandparents.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

Foreigner here - and I can't speak for all of the country, but pretty much everyone I know in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia did some sort of "Canadian Mosaic" unit around Grade 3 that involved making a family tree, bringing in food from your family's culture, etc. As someone with both a legal and a biological father, and six ethnic backgrounds in the family, none of which I really 'belonged' to, I personally found it an excruciating month - I couldn't say I was X because I didn't speak the language, I couldn't say I was Y because I didn't practice the religion, I couldn't say I was Z because that side of the family didn't acknowledge me, and I couldn't say I was N because I wasn't the right colour.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I doubt any of the schools I went to would touch on ethnic backgrounds with a ten foot poll. We certainly did nothing like this. And I remember once when there was some free time in Middle School one of the students brought up the issue of religion and asked for a show of hands in the class to see how many of us were which religions. None of us minded, but boy did the teacher look incredibly uncomfortable. Turned out to be about half Jewish, half Christian in the class. That was fairly representative for the neighborhood.

Absences from class for the Jewish high holy days were common, and something might be mentioned about a teacher being absent on an upcoming day or how there wouldn't be as much of a lesson that day as too much of the class would be gone (I don't know what the classes were like, as I was absent for them), but other than that, we avoided the topics.

I think our school had the attitude of: you try to keep culture as much out of school as possible so that nobody can be excluded or offended and let them do that at home. You do not have them sing songs from any religion or holiday, no plays that touch on such things, just stay away from the issue.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

I would add (sorry if you already know this) that The Canadian Mosaic is a big thing in Canada. It was pretty much invented in opposition to the American Melting Pot metaphor, with the idea that we celebrate our differences, and thus why it's a part of a lot of curricula.

Of course, it's come under controversy in recent years. On the one hand, it does try to discourage a "fit in or get out attitude" (though it's really not successful) but on the other, it's criticized as not nurturing a national identity, especially for our many transracial and second- and third-generation Canadians, leaving all Canadians sort of sullenly grasping at "Well, we're not Americans and we're not British..."

[leora.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I can definitely see some good intent in that.

I just generally think any sort of family tree making is likely to lead to problems for some kids.

I do, however, like the idea of teaching that people are different, have different cultures, and come from different families - and that's okay.

[conuly]

LOL. When my sister was in, like, the third or fourth grade, she had an assignment to bring in her family tree "from when your family arrived in America". This is New York, her teacher clearly only expected parents and grandparents, maybe great-grandparents to be on that tree.

Alas for Jenn, our father's family is not from New York. They've been in the US since before the Revolution!

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I remember being reprimanded by my teacher for leaving the date blank for when my grandmother's branch of the family had come to Canada - though she semi-graciously took it back when I informed her that my grandmother was Native.

My other issue with the family tree was that we were supposed to put down all the relatives we knew about, and one set of my grandparents had nine and twelve siblings respectively. I was a little short on horizontal space.

[conuly]

This is when one discreetly lies and claims one has a small family. My mother occasionally brings up that story and wonders aloud why her suggestion of "Just count back three generations and stop, nobody cares" took so long to be heeded.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

That's very good advice. My family tree ended up being very wide but short, given that neither of my parents could name all four of their grandparents.