Certainly, teaching about politics can be daunting, especially as the political climate in the United States becomes increasingly partisan as a result of heated political rhetoric amplified through a variety of media outlets. However, elementary teachers can help students develop the respectful dispositions they will need as young adults living in…

An open mind--the willingness to consider experiences, beliefs, values, perspectives, etc. that differ from one's own--allows the learner to explore how diverse people across the world think and act. Open-mindedness creates opportunities to rethink assumptions, identify misinformation, and consider alternative ways to make decisions.…

Historical structures have connected civilization across time as a representation of important events, famous people, or experiences of diverse cultures. The value systems of a society are reflected in these structures and convey political and historical information. Knowledge about historical structures provides understanding of cultures of…

In an effort to gain greater insights into bilingual and bicultural children's understanding of their cultural and linguistic identities, the authors embarked on a Where I'm From (WIF) multi-media poetry project. The WIF project has great potential and value for developing students' language and communication skills, and for exploring the meaning…

In this article, the author describes how her first grade class embarked on a journey of learning through a unit of study about local food markets. The study was a rich exploration of the cultural diversity of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well as an introduction to basic concepts about economics. Through their trips to a farm and…

Students come from many different family, cultural, and religious backgrounds. Learning about Islam can help U.S. teachers to understand their students and their own society, as well as to more deeply comprehend history and better interpret current events. In this article, the author recommends some websites (and occasionally books) that can…

Many people hold two common misconceptions about the Pennsylvania Dutch: first, that these people live exclusively in the state of Pennsylvania; second, that their ancestors came from Holland. However, neither assumption is correct. One can find large Pennsylvania Dutch communities in Mary land, West Virginia, Virginia, the Carolinas, Ohio,…

In this article, the author describes how teachers, students, and other community members collaborated in the planning and preparation of World Bazaar, a project aimed to immerse elementary students into modern and ancient cultures through reading, writing, researching, using maps, and seeing videos. On the day of the World Bazaar, the courtyard…

It is of vital importance that children develop positive attitudes about ethnicity and race at an early age. Young children are not born with a racial bias, but by the time they reach high school they have often adopted the prejudices to which they have been exposed. In this article, the author discusses ways to help elementary school teachers…

The increasing ethnic and cultural diversity of American society demands that classroom teachers prepare students for national and global citizenship. Students of the twenty-first century need to cultivate transformative and reflective knowledge, intellectual skills, and democratic attitudes and values needed to successfully navigate diverse…

As elementary teachers who teach in a variety of settings--in rural, inner city, and medium-sized town schools, these authors were concerned that their young students were coming into their classes without a real respect and tolerance for cultural differences. They believed that lessons could be taught in the primary grades that would instruct…

This article describes a story of two fourth-grade teachers' journey to create lessons that would be developmentally appropriate, culturally sensitive, and historically accurate in teaching children about Columbus's encounter with Native Americans. The aim of this four-week unit of study was to have fourth-grade students look at multiple…

Most teachers and administrators have witnessed children using a derogatory reference to a group of people as a put down. Put downs usually reference non-mainstream groups who are different in ethnicity, gender, religion, ability, sexual orientation, class, or appearance. Hurtful name calling is but one example of how children express prejudiced…

Describes three approaches (folk festivals, origin learning centers, and local/global inquiry) that help elementary students address issues of diversity, global studies, and social constructivism; these approaches grew out of a collaborative project between a local school district and a university called the Children's Center for Global…

Focuses on the experiences of some New Jersey teachers and reviews John Goodland's five types of curriculum in an effort to describe the nature of Holocaust education in the United States. Provides suggestions of how Holocaust education can be taught in an age-appropriate manner for K-4 classrooms. (CMK)