 |
|
Carole Blair and Thelma Margulies
Cletis Tatum
Tonya Hall
 Tonya
Hall taught for UDI Youthbuild,
a program for pre-GED and GED level
students in Durham, North Carolina.
Tonya integrated TV411
into a lesson on prejudice and discrimination. The subject is
vast, but the TV411 materials helped her focus the content and
structure class discussion.
Tonya begins with a
stereotype-busting activity, in which she presents four characters
and four gifts and asks her students to suggest who should receive
each gift. Here are the characters and the students' typical gift
assignments:
• The male
taxi driver receives the leather jacket.
• The female senior citizen receives tickets to the opera.
• The male "A" student receives the dictionary.
• The Red Cross worker receives the walkman.
Next, Tonya plays the
TV411 segment, "Buzzword: Stereotype" (Episode
15), which defines and illustrates the word "stereotype."
Now that the students have been exposed to the concept
of stereotyping, Tonya divulges that these characters
are real people and the gifts they requested are surprising
and personal, rather than stereotypical.
• The taxi
driver, a university student, asked for the dictionary, so he
could study while waiting for fares.
• The Red Cross worker asked for the leather jacket to
use as protective gear during natural disasters.
• The "A" student wanted the opera tickets for
the experience.
• The senior citizen wanted the walkman to use on her
morning jogs.
From here on, discussion
gets intense. Tonya prompts her students to name various
racial, age and gender stereotypes and explore their origins and effects.
The class is now ready for "Milestones: The Freedom Writers"
(Episode 17), a profile of four California students who
use pen and paper to fight prejudice and intolerance.
Tonya has many ideas for how students might continue to
explore issues of diversity and tolerance. For example,
students could research the civil rights or interview
a person they do not know and introduce that person to
the class through writing. This lesson is just the beginning. |
|
|
|
