SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities

 

Goal 10 Reduce inequalities within and among countries.

Across the world there is still a lot of inequality to be found. What does inequality look like? For example, even in the richest countries, there are children who cannot afford lunch at school and go hungry, women who don’t get paid as much as their male coworkers for the same job, or people who are being treated differently because of their religion, age or where they are from.

Select a book from here.

My students certainly understand equality from maths and from personal forays with what they consider to be unfair or unequal, but whether or not they can clearly verbalise or visualise inequality is a different matter. They come from very comfortable middle class homes in a prosperous city. Demonstrating inequality will need to be personal or connected in someway to their life to start with. They will have all read and understood equal shares from reading a book such as The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins, so I think I could read Four Feet Two Sandals to show that sharing and life for some children does not always work so equably.

 

Here's the blurb: 

When relief workers bring used clothing to the refugee camp, everyone scrambles to grab whatever they can. Ten-year-old Lina is thrilled when she finds a sandal that fits her foot perfectly, until she sees that another girl has the matching shoe. But soon Lina and Feroza meet and decide that it is better to share the sandals than for each to wear only one. 

Then maybe follow it up with something that talks about taking a stand, like Peter Reynold's Say Something!   

Here's the blurb:

The world needs your voice. If you have a brilliant idea... say something! If you see an injustice... say something! In this empowering picture book, author Peter H. Reynolds explores the many ways that a single voice can make a difference. Each of us, each and every day, have the chance to say something: with our actions, our words, and our voices. Perfect for kid activists everywhere, this timely story reminds readers of the undeniable importance and power of their voice especially when it comes to inequality.

This may also be the place to look at how disabled people, Indigenous people, people of other faiths are treated and whether it is equably.

These two books are suitable for very young readers and they will provide for lots of discussion post reading.

Two Mates  by Melanie and Maggie Prewett.    

Here's the blurb: 

Two Mates is the true story of the special mateship between two young boys who have grown up together in the coastal town of Broome in Australia's north-west. Jack is Indigenous and Raf is a non- Indigenous boy who has spina bifida. Jack and Raf take the reader on a journey of their daily life growing up in Broome. Together they search for hermit crabs, go hunting for barni, fish for salmon, explore the markets, eat satays and dress up as superheros. The fact that Raf is in a wheelchair is only revealed at the end of the story. 

Just Ask  by Sonia Sotomayor and Raphael Lopez

Here's the blurb:

Feeling different, especially as a kid, can be tough. But in the same way that different types of plants and flowers make a garden more beautiful and enjoyable, different types of people make our world more vibrant and wonderful. 

Just Ask,  celebrates the different abilities kids (and people of all ages) have. Using her own experience as a child who was diagnosed with diabetes, Justice Sotomayor writes about children with all sorts of challenges--and looks at the special powers those kids have as well. As the kids work together to build a community garden, asking questions of each other along the way, this book encourages readers to do the same- When we come across someone who is different from us but we're not sure why, all we have to do is Just Ask.

Booklet tasks:

• We know what equal means from maths, so we can work out what equality means, but what does inequality mean?

 

• We read...

 

• This story made me want to change how...

 

15th March Shoe the World Day

Each day over 500 million children, teens and adults around the world do not have a pair of shoes to wear, and despite the terrain and the climate, they have to walk barefoot everywhere. It is a struggle each day that we cannot begin to imagine. So yes we do need this Shoe the World Day. Talking to my students this week we compared their trip to school with that of Anna in Alma Fullerton's A Cloud of Dust and talked at length about how many pairs of shoes they had compared to what they needed. 


While this book Stand in My Shoes by Bob Sornson is somewhat heavy-handed and lacks the beautiful art work of the other books listed here, this is indeed what we want our students to do, we want them to empathise with people who live very different lives from theirs.

Here are some picture books that feature shoes that really make a difference to the way students may see the world. 

 • Running Shoes  by Frederick Lipp. This powerful story tells of how a very poor Cambodian child, Sophy's life changes as the result of getting a pair of shoes.


• Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams tells the story of two young girls, Lina and Feroza who are living in a refugee camp in Pakistan. When relief workers bring around some clothing they both want this pair of shoes.

• One Red Shoe by Karin Gruss is also set in the middle east in a war zone. This is based on a real life experience of a reporter in a war zone and best suited to older students.

• Rebel! by Allan Baillie. This book is out of print but worth seeking out in a library. It tells the story of a child in Burma who is extremely brave during a General's visit to his village. I have had some wonderful class discussions with this book with older students. 

31st August Book Week 2017

When the Picture Book of the Year shortlist came out I read the books and wondered what I was going to do with my Year 2 classes this year as I thought many of the list would need too much scaffolding to share with them successfully. I read The Patchwork Bike and could see a myriad of possibilities and it reminded me of of many other bicycle books that I had read that were also set in Africa. I then thought about the theme Escape to Everywhere  and thought about whether we could 'escape on a bicycle in Africa'. Mind mapping all these books and possibilities I put together a six week (one lesson a week) study which looked at the role of bicycles in Africa and how it differs from here. We started with looking at the role of bicycles in their own lives, where they come from, what they are used for, how much they cost, how many did each family have and who actually had one and could ride one. We recorded this anecdotally. Then we read these books, located the places on a map and talked at length about the main characters, the places and the bikes in the stories:

• Emmanuel's Dream which is a biography about Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, a disabled boy who grew up in West Ghana, overcame great difficulties and went on to inspire others. (See Emmanuel talking about his life here.)

• My Rows and Piles of Coins is the story of a Saruni who helps his mother carry everything to market in Tanzania each week and realises that a bicycle would change his and his mothers life for the better so he saves his money in order to buy one. He has a lot of coins but learns that it is still nowhere near enough to buy a bike.

• The Red Bicycle has a bicycle as the main character.It starts life in  i in North America, being owned and ridden by a young boy.  His bicycle is donated  to an organisation that ships bicycles to Africa and is sent to Burkina Faso, in West Africa, where it finds a home with Alisetta, who uses it to gain quicker access to her family's sorghum field and to the market and then is repurposes as an ambulance.(If you have All Aboard For the Bobo Road, it is also set in Burkina Faso and shows the role of bikes well in the illustrations.)

• In A Cloud of Dust tells the story of Anna who has a long walk to and  from school in Tanzania until the school is visited by a bicycle library. At this point I asked the children whether there was any aspect of Emmanuel, Saruni, Alisetta or Anna's life that they thought they would enjoy or like to try. The discussion was amazing. Many students thought these children had a degree of freedom and independence that they did not, some wanted to try working for money and some of the girls commented on liking to live 'without technology'.

Then we read The Patchwork Bike and watched both Maxine Beneba Clark read it on Youtube and it read on Story Box Library where we could see the illustrations in great detail because of their size on the smartboard. The students were fascinated by the way the illustrations were done on cardboard from a box. We talked about what we could use to make a bike. The students designed and drew up plans. I had time to read one class Galimoto too and this class made bikes from cardboard and wire. I was impressed with their  perseverance and their readiness to help each other.

Overall the Year 2 students and I have had a very interesting time in library lessons this term. We have used maps, turned the library into a makerspace to design and make, read good literature, put ourselves in others' shoes, watched film clips and been surprised at just what is happening charity and bike-wise.

12th -20th September NSW Bike Week

The weather here has been superb. It is Spring and you just want to be outside doing things. On the weekend the Festival of the Winds was on in Bondi. It is NSW Bike Week  from Saturday, 12 September until Sunday, 20 September and there are children in parks, at the beach and on the move. Hopefully it will still be like this in a week's time when it is school holidays. When I think of Spring at school I like to read Will Hillenbrand's Spring is Here to my preschoolers. It is one of the books in the series about Bear and Mole. Coincidently there is a title about kites, Kite Day and another title in the series about bike riding  is Off We Go! Here Bear is encouraging Mole to give up his training wheels. This too is the premise in other titles about bike riding (see list of titles below). 

I am often asked by parents for books about bike riding because their child is fearful and unwilling to take risks. I recommend Jeanne Willis' Don't Let Go! which hasn't failed me yet. Here a little girl persuades her father to teach her to ride a bike. She has all the trouble with balancing and speed control that every learner remembers - but at last she is whipping down the path in the park screaming: 'It's all right - you can let go now!' 

I notice that there has been a number of new books which feature bicycles lately including Byron Barton's My Bike, Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bike by Chris Raschka and two more about bears on bikes, Bike On, Bear! by Cynthia Liu and Bear on a Bike by Hannah Shaw which is coming soon.

I like to share two books set in Africa with older children who take having a bike for granted,  Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams and My Rows and Piles of Coins with fabulous illustrations by E.B.Lewis.  These two show how for a child without a bike the yearning for the freedom that comes with a bike is paramount.

And don't forget Mulga Bill's Bicycle. Read it with gusto and explain the history of it and penny farthings.

5th - 11th August Homeless Person's Week

Homeless Persons' Week (HPW) is an annual themed week coordinated by Homelessness Australia.  It is used to raise awareness of people experiencing homelessness and the surrounding issues. It is held in the first full week of August each year. And while it is not a topic I would usually embrace explicitly with the young children I teach there are books that I might read to and discuss with them that highlight how important it is to have a home. While talking I might also touch upon how important it is to have a private place, a space that you can call your own, and how for many people, children included this is difficult because of the home they live in. It may be overcrowded, under-resourced, lacking in adult supervision or just too temporary.

These books do some of these things:
• Way Home  by Libby Hathorn and Gregory Rogers. This classic prize-winner was published after Margaret Wild and Gregory Rogers' Space Travellers which also dealt with homelessness, but this time the 'aura' of the book was much more convincing. A young boy Shane appears to be wandering the city streets at night. He finds a cat and takes it home with him. Home, as you find out at the end of the story is a makeshift cubbyhole. The tenderness Shane shows to the cat highlights what being 'human' is about and gives the reader hope. The illustrations are rich visually and choosing one of the double page spreads would make a good stimulus for a See Think Wonder routine or the Making Thinking Visible routine that looks at what comes before and after this picture.

• Flyaway Home  by Eve Bunting and Ronald Himler tells the story of a young boy and his father who live in an airport and have to keep moving from terminal to terminal to avoid being noticed. The boy observes a trapped bird who finally finds freedom and this gives the boy hope for the future. So just like Shane who reaches out to the cat, this boy empathises with the bird.

• Broken Beaks  by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer and Robert Ingpen. This is the story of friendship between a sparrow and a homeless man who suffers from a mental illness. It uses the metaphor of broken beaks to explain disabilities.
It is interesting that like the two stories above that need for love and being with other living things is also highlighted through friendship with an animal.

--Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE; Founder the Jane Goodall Institute; UN Messenger of Peace

"Enchanting, moving, and beautifully written. Broken Beaks is a brilliant way to help young children begin to understand the tragedy of the homeless."

• Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams, Khadra Mohammed and Doug Chayka. This story is set in a refugee camp in Pakistan where families are waiting to be resettled. When some clothing is delivered two young girls find one sandal each and would like to find its partner. In the process Lina and Feroza meet and begin to understand the meaning of sacrifice and friendship. 

• One Hen by Katie Smith Milway and Eugenie Fernandes. In this story of a young Ghanian boy, named Kojo, he is not homeless, but extremely poor. With a small loan he buys a chicken and then sells his eggs and thus becomes able to sustain himself and eventually others. This inspiring story shows children what can happen with hard work, the desire to change and help given for the right things. It is also based on a true story and the real-life story of Kojo is at the back of the book.

•Scrawny Cat by Phyllis Root and Alison Friend. This story is much more lightweight than the others, but very suitable for a discussion about home and being homeless with very young children. Here a lost, scrawny, and hungry cat finds himself alone in the world after having once been loved by someone who scratched behind his ears and used his name. Now he is lonely and everyone just tells him to 'get out of here'. Finally he finds someone who takes him in.

19th June Refugee Week

Day 3 of Refugee Week. Today I have chosen three picture books that highlight the difficulties children have when starting school in an environment that is very different from the one they have left.

1. My Name is Sangoel by Karen Lynn Williams & Khadra Mohammed

Near the beginning the text reads,'Sangoel's father was killed in the war in Sudan. His family had to run from the fighting in the middle of the night. Sangoel was a refugee. He did not have a home. He did not have a country.' Straight away there is so much to discuss with children and the chance for readers to immediately empathise with Sangoel. He moves to America and his peers and teachers struggle to say his name correctly. Amazingly he is strong enough to solve this problem for himself and his positive step becomes a rebus activity for the whole class. The children I have shared this book with all wanted to do the rebus activity with their own name and while this may appear tokenistic, they all remember Sangoel and this book.

2. The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi

This book is also about names and classmates having problems pronouncing it. Uhei (Yoo-hay) is Korean and feels the pressure to choose an anglicised name. Unlike Sangoel, initially she thinks about it, but finally decides to keep her own name. This book is not as inspiring as the previous one but still worth reading and discussing. There are some great discussion starters for this book here. This book could also be used in conjunction with My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits to look at connections between texts.

3. Marianthe's Story by Aliki

This book is very novel. It is made up of two stories, Painted Stories and Spoken Memories. One story is at each end of the book. Like Uhei and Sangoel, Marianthe moves to school in America and doesn't understand English, but she is very good at drawing. In Painted Stories her teacher asks her to paint and then allows her to share her paintings with the class and in this way they come to appreciate what she is experiencing. In the Spoken Memories end is Marianthe's lifestory and how she came to go to America.

17th - 23rd June Refugee Week

From Sunday 17th June till 23rd June is Refugee Week. World Refugee Day is on Wednesday 20th June. The theme for this year is Restoring Hope.

The CEO of the Refugee Council, Paul Power said at the launch of the week today,

"If you compare the political debate that we have in Australia to other countries in equivalent situations, it is pretty disappointing that the process of seeking protection from persecution is so politicised in Australia."

He went on to say, "Until we can attempt to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who has suffered through that, often people have misunderstandings of what being a refugee is about."

And so it is this ability to empathise with the plight of refugees that we as teachers need to focus upon when choosing books to read to and with young children. Luckily there is a large number of books which have refugees and 'restoring hope' as themes.

If you are looking for a one stop place to start planning some lessons this is an amazing resource for teachers. If you teach very young children and you want to have a discussion on 'hope' and what it means, this little picture book is a good starting point, Circles of Hope by Karen Lynn Williams and Linda Saport.

During Refugee Week in 2010 I wrote about seven books that illustrate the plight of refugees, that I have used in my library with children aged between 6 and 8. They are listed here with links back to the original entries.

1. 20/6/2010 Refugees by David Miller

2. 21/6/2010 Petar's Song by Patrima Mitchell and Caroline Binch

3. 22/6/2010 Four Feet Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams

4. 23/6/2010 The Colour of Home by Karen Hoffman

5. 24/6/2010 A True Person by Gabiann Martin and Jacqui Grantford

6. 25/6/2010 Ali the Bold by Jane Jolly and Elise Hurst

7. 26/6/2010 Rainbow Bird by Czenya Cavouras

As well as returning to these I will talk about other books that can be added to this bookbank over the next few days.

22nd March Karen Lynn Williams (1952)

Yesterday at school we celebrated Harmony Day with a visit from a wonderful group of people from the Torres Straits. Harmony Day is celebrated around Australia on 21 March each year. It's a day where all Australians celebrate our cultural diversity. The day is also the United Nation's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The message for Harmony Day in 2011 is that Everyone Belongs, which means all Australians are a welcome part of our country, regardless of their background. Our school has extended this message to become Harmony Week. This is extremely fitting given that the school community is quite homogenous and needs to be made more aware of cultural diversity.

Today is American author Karen Lynn Williams' birthday. She is the perfect author for this week as she has lived and worked in developing countries and worked tirelessly with refugees in her own country. She has written widely based on her experience and her books certainly help in the quest to eliminate racial discrimination. We have three of her books (pictured) in our library perfect for discussion on a variety of topics from racism, sexism, inclusion to family similarities if it is with very young children. You can read blurbs, reviews and teaching suggestions for the books on her website.

24th January

According to many calendars, yesterday, 23rd January was Measure Your Feet Day. Why I do not know, but when I started to think about books that you could use on a day with this moniker, there were plenty that leant themselves to having fun with this topic. If you want to plan an activity-based lesson for very young children, Aliki's My Feet would be a good starting point. You could also have fun with Dr Seuss' The Foot Book. Two good stories to read which look at feet, their size and gumboots are Alfie's Feet by Shirley Hughes and Muddy Footprints by Mary Small. For children who like ballet, Belinda Ballerina is the star of a series of books by Amy Young. Belinda wants to be a ballerina but she has a problem, two very big feet! And, lastly just because it is a story everyone should read and it is about feet, Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams.