United States Rug

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

I am a social skills teacher from New Orleans, Louisiana. My experience has taught me that instructing a child is one of the greatest privileges one can undertake. However, as a teacher, I have learned that I must be cognizant of the fact that the whole child is what comes to the instructional environment. My students walk into my room with their fears, hopes, dreams, desires, and the harsh realities of their family, community, and the past. Our students are haunted by the memories of the life they left behind in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In some cases, our students' assimilation into our new Houston environment has been extremely difficult because they are haunted by memories of the devastation of the storm. The first step toward moving our students away from the role of the victim is to empower them with knowledge. It is so easy to fear something you do not understand. I am planning to begin a social studies instructional unit to share information regarding not only the strengths and unique qualities of the various states that make up this great country, but the vulnerabilities of our country as well. In order to be able to deal with their own memories of the hurricane, our students need to understand why hurricanes impact the states on the gulf coast, the proximity of neighboring states, and what our man-made and natural lines of defense are during such storms. The use of strong visual aids would prove invaluable in accomplishing this task. After 27 years of teaching, I have discovered that visual aids that possess some unique characteristics, such as bold colors and a large surface are usually help to keep students engaged. I would like to teach my students about our country using a United States floor rug that displays coastal borders and capital cities. This rug will be on continuous display within the classroom allowing the students to make the geographical connections that the need to make by actually walking over a visual representation of our country. It would serve to stimulate their curiosity, seek information to allay their fear of the unknown, and allow them a continuous visual reference to assist them with their questions about our country. In addition to its instructional value, it would also serve as a place where students can come together in small groups for sharing, problem solving, and support. I have utilized such a rug map in the past and found it to be an invaluable instructional tool. However, I lost this resource along with many others after it was destroyed by the hurricane.