Social Studies Grade Two

Module Two - Schools Meet Needs and Wants

Concepts

• interdependence, needs, wants, school, disabilities

Students will know that:

• the school provides services and the work of various people to help meet basic human needs and wants.
• schools may have to make changes to meet the needs of people with disabilities.

Students will:

• identify ways in which the school meets human needs and wants.
• identify ways the local school might have to change in order to meet the needs of people with various disabilities.

Students will:

• value their school experiences.
• appreciate the needs of people with disabilities.

Students may:

• design and follow actionplans to make their school a better place for all students.

• Brainstorm how the local school meets the needs of different groups of people in the community. Explore how different kinds of schools meet different needs (e.g., distance education, home schooling).
• Interview a person who goes to a different school.
• If possible, link up with a reserve school, or other nearby school, which is on Internet.
• Develop a chart, "Ways People Learn", recording family members and their learning experiences. As a homework assignment ask students to interview people in their home and neighbourhood about learning experiences. Add to the chart.
• Explore with students the idea that people learn in different ways, or have preferred learning styles. Have them consider how they learn and what they can do to improve their learning.
• Using a variety of resources, including role play, find out how schools meet the needs and wants of people with disabilities and how the school might do it better.
• With the students compile a list of inventions or adaptations that allow persons with disabilities to function in a school.
• Tell the story of Rachel Zimmerman and Diane Dupuy.

• Have the students work in small groups to solve various challenges.

Module 2: Activity Guide

The local school

With the class brainstorm all the different ways the local school meets the needs of students and adults in the community. Consider:

• education of students
• employment for teachers and other staff
• recreation facility for students and adults in the community

Different schools to meet different needs

Explore a variety of learning situations, for example nursery school, adult upgrading, home schooling, distance education, or school in another country. Identify how each is similar to or different from the students' classroom or school.

Interview a person who goes to a different kind of school (e.g., university, technical school). Ask the guest about her learning experiences.

Develop a chart, "All People Learn", recording family members and their learning experiences. Begin by brainstorming ideas. Suggestions may include:

• younger siblings attending nursery school;
• mom and dad taking dance lessons;
• a student studying a manual to learn and computer program;
• an older sibling at high school; and
• grandma teaching how to make bannock.

Reflect on various learning experiences by completing the following sentence frame:
If I ....I think I would learn ...

Make a class book recording various versions of the frame sentence. Have the students complete the frame sentence independently in their journals.

Visit different learning institutions; go to a high school and read to "big buddies" or go to a daycare and read to "little buddies".

Invite a panel of older students and/or parents to discuss their feelings and ideas about the importance of education.

Have the students reflect on their future work life and what kind of learning will be necessary for them. Do simulations to explore various jobs for example in a restaurant, supermarket, or television station. Develop understandings about the changing nature of the work world and the necessity of life-long learning.

Distance education

Teacher background

Some schools in Saskatchewan are too small to offer all the subjects the students need in the higher grades. Sometimes students have to learn some of their subjects by "distance education". Students watch a teacher working with a class in a large city. The student is able to communicate with the teacher and can ask questions and get answers.

Many Saskatchewan children of all ages use computers to communicate with children in other communities near by and far away. They use computers to access information.

In Australia some students use computers to learn about the topics they are studying. The students are hooked up to classrooms in other parts of the country and other parts of the world. They share what they have learned with other students and they get information from other students.

Explore the necessity for distance learning. Compare Australia with northern Saskatchewan. Discuss the right to an education for all children, even those who live in isolated areas.

Speculate about the future. Identify advantages and disadvantages of distance learning.

How schools meet the needs of people with disabilities

Develop empathy for persons with disabilities by using simulations.

• Put students in pairs and have them do a "blind walk". One student is blindfolded and the other leads.
• Have students tie one hand behind theirbacks and function with one hand for a period of time.
• Borrow a wheelchair. Allow students to experience being confined to the wheelchair for a period of time.

Invite a person with a disability into the classroom to speak to students about how s/he leads a full life despite the disability.

Read a storybook about disabled children (e.g., Keith Edward's Different Day.) Discuss the rights of all children to an education. Using focused imaging have the students imagine themselves with a disability.

In their journals have the students reflect on what it might be like to have a disability. Ask them to write about how they would like to be treated. Guide the students in exploring some of the day to day tasks that would require more effort or special equipment.

Use drama to explore the experiences in the classroom and the school of a child with a disability. Use the sentence starter, "I know how I would like to be treated if I was (blind, deaf, in a wheelchair, etc.)." Invite students to share their writing.

Do case studies of children who have learned to cope with their disability and have a full life. Learn about technologies such as wheelchairs, artificial limbs, special computer programs, and special keyboards that allow persons with disabilities to lead a fuller life.

Ask the students to compile a list of inventions or adaptations that allow persons with disabilities to function in a school. Make a master list. Check your own school to see how well it could accommodate people with various disabilities. Look for additional improvements that could be made.

Profiles: Rachel Zimmerman and Diane Dupuy

To introduce the stories, the teacher may wish to do some of the following:

• Distribute a sheets of scrap paper to students. Have them fold the paper in half. Ask them to quickly list on one half three or more things twith which they are really good at. Ask them to quickly list on the other half three or more things that they really have difficulty.
• Ask some volunteers to share what they have written with the class.
• Discuss the idea that people are different. We all have different talents. We can use our talents to help meet the needs of others. Sometimes we need the talents of others to help meet our needs.
• Read to the class some stories about people with disabilities. If stories are unavailable, make some up, like the following:

  Marcia was lying unconscious in the hospital. Around her bed were several doctors and nurses. It seemed like a dozen machines were attached to various parts of her body. Her mother and aunt were in the hallway praying that she would be okay.

  Just that morning, Marcia was riding her bike to school like she did every morning. Except this time a car hit her. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital. Now she was fighting for her life.

  Later that day, the doctor talked to Marcia's mother. "Your daughter will live," he said. "But she is paralysed. She will have to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair."

• Ask students, "What special needs will Marcia (or others) have? Might she have some talents that she could develop in spite of her disability?"

It all started with a science project. Rachel was thirteen and her class assignment was to enter a project in the science fair.

Rachel had read about the work of Charles Bliss, who invented a system called Blissymbolics. This system uses pictures or symbols to represent words. He thought it would be a kind of language that could be used when people from different countries wanted to `talk' to each other. But it was never used much for that purpose.

The system is being used in teaching some children with speech and language disabilities to communicate. In this way, two people can talk to one another by pointing to different pictures. It works well, but has some disadvantages. It can be very slow. It also means someone has to be watching in order for a person to `talk'. Rachel thought she could improve the system.

Rachel's mother owns a computer software company and helped Rachel with her project. Rachel developed a computer program that allows the person `speaking' to touch symbols on a board, which feeds them into the computer. The computer translates the symbols into a written language. The message appears on the computer screen in Bliss symbols along with the French or English words.

Rachel's project won the Silver Medal in a Canada-wide Science Fair. From there she went on to compete in the World Exhibition in Bulgaria.

She is still working on improving her program.

Adapted with permission from The Women Inventors Project, Inventing Women: Profiles of Women Inventors, by Janet Panabaker, Waterloo, Ontario, 1991, p.20 - 21.

Diane Dupuy has large dark eyes. When she was in elementary school, she was quite tall for her age. The other children used to tease her about her height and call her "Bug Eyes". She didn't like the name. She didn't enjoy the teasing.

To avoid the teasing, she kept to herself and stayed out of school activiites. When her class put on a play, she thought she would like to act in it. But she was far too shy and she thought she didn't have much talent.

Then when she was in high school, she discovered puppet theatres. She could be behind the curtain, so no one could see her and she didn't get stage fright. But she could still act through her puppets. It was perfect for her!

She worked hard developing her skills. She performed her puppet shows for different groups including groups of disabled people. One year she performed at the National Exhibition in Toronto.

During the next few years she did quite a lot of work with disabled people. Their shyness and lack of confidence reminded her of herself when she was young. This gave her an idea. Why not have people with disabilities perform in puppet shows?

With some money from government, she started a puppet theatre called "Famous People Players". She hired nine people with disabilities from a local school and three people with some theatre experience. They created life-sized puppets of famous people and did comedy routines with them. The puppeteers dressed in black and under special lighting could not be seen by the audience. The disabled performers soon got over their shyness because they knew that they were "invisible" on the stage.

During the next 20 years the Famous People Players performed in theatres across Canada and around the world. They performed in Regina and Saskatoon. They performed for the president of the United Satates, in Radio City Music Hall in New York, and in Las Vegas. They performed in many different countries as far away as China.

Diane Dupuy is very proud of her performers. She says they can act as well as anyone. She says it's great to see what happens when people stop thinking about their disabilities and start having confidence in their abilities.

Adapted with permission from Gage Educational Publishing, Canadians All 8, 1989, pages 33 - 36.

As a follow-up to the stories, the teacher may wish to do the following:

• Discuss in what ways Rachel and Diane and theatre players needed some help, and in what ways they used their talents to help meet the needs of others.
• Have students find examples of various people who have special needs and/or special talents. Discuss how needs were met and how people used their talents.

Make action plans. Enter objectives on a template and assess progress as a group.