Martin Luther King Day

I spent the weekend looking through history videos wondering where I should start teaching history. Starting from the beginning (Creation) and making our way through chronologically seems a tad boring to me – and I’m really not the expert when it comes to history. I found videos on Egypt and the pyramids which tags in Pharaohs and Kings, Cleopatra, etc… and then we have a gazillion videos and books on both World Wars and Canadian history. Needless to say, I will definitely be learning alongside Breanna on each of these topic.

Then it dawned on me… just go with the flow After all, it is what I do best. So since today was Martin Luther King day, we started there.

We started talking about ‘black people’ and the different names they have been refered to (and of course why certain words are now considered insulting). Today, we call them African-Americans, however I personally have trouble with that term – but anyway….

Breanna is well aware of slavery so we didn’t really discuss much but what happened after the law declared slavery illegal? Hmmmm time for some “hands-on”. I had errands to run and Breanna was going to join me. On the bus, we started discussing Discrimination, Racism and Segregation. We then ‘categorized’ people on the bus by groups – different ways these people could be discriminated. I was surprised at how easy this was for her.

Our list:

• Gender (I mentioned: “can you imagine if only guys were allowed on the bus? No women allowed whatsoever – they have to walk.” Her response: “That would suck for a widow with a son!” LOL Her way of thinking cracks me up)
• Size/Weight/Height
• Eye colour
• Skin colour
• Voices/Sounds (pitch)
• Faith
• How much someone talks (introvert vs extrovert)
• Politeness
• Hair styles
• Clothing
• Money
• Hobbies
• Music
• Language
• Age
• Disability – wheelchairs, canes, blind, deaf

Once she had a good grasp of discrimination, racism and segregation, I introduced Martin Luther King and we discussed that he had a Dream – a dream that he strongly believed in and he fought for it until he died by assassination < that seem to catch her attention.

Breanna will be putting a lapbook together tomorrow – pictures to follow!

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