Workshop description
Collaboratively focus on East or West African artifacts. Ask and be asked questions...
My family and I have been visiting Kenya for over thirty years with our Kenyan friends coming here as well. Every time I go, I take notes and pictures and bring home artifacts which represent the culture.
I write children's books, so that kids can meet kids from Africa, who live such a different life, yet get into the same kind of mischief. I have a special fondness for working with rural populations, both abroad and at home. I also support the power of the arts as an education tool and have tremendous faith in our young to absorb, remember, and grow with each alive learning experience.
With Creative Cultural Workshops, we go beyond the classroom and begin the process of attaining a wider vision of global community and the interrelatedness of the planet. By bringing the story and pieces of another culture home, we begin cultivating an understanding of the world beyond where we are.
I show where and how we'd get there. I ask what they already know or think they know... We begin with greetings in the culture's language, getting a feel for it on our tongues. While examining and trying items that represent clothing, food, religion, environment, and family life, we bring up challenges facing the African people or dispel common misunderstandings. I invite questions...and one usually leads to another.
Students smell and wear, touch and try all the artifacts. Older groups might discuss Rites of Passage and what our society has that's similar, AIDs or environmental and educational challenges Africa faces.
Time estimate: 1 hour
Who is this workshop best suited for?
Grades 4 through Adult
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"Trees of red flowers bloom with heat. Acacia pods rattle and fruit bats sleep..."