Bring the World into Our Classroom with Videos and Media

In the third grade students across New York City begin their study of communities around the world. In the current climate, however, when so much emphasis is put on bringing inner-city children's reading and math levels up (which I strongly agree with), not much emphasis is placed on anything else. Consequently, classroom resources to aid teaching and learning in social studies are sparse. I happen to think that social studies is just as important an area of study as reading and math. When so many of our world's people are so intolerant of each other, and we are still fighting the demons of racism and sexism, being able to see the common thread of humanity through all of the world's people is of great importance to our children. Currently, my students are finishing a study on China that began five weeks ago. We began with China's geography and are closing with special celebrations. I combed the local public-library bookshelves and media-library shelves for resources for our study and was able to get some good materials to supplement what my school already had available. The next obstacle that is proving a little harder to overcome is having the media equipment to show our videos. Simply put, we need a television/VCR combination to be able to use the video treasures I was able to find. A thirteen-inch model will suffice. If possible, a wheeled cart to move it about our room safely would be a welcome addition. I truly believe that social studies is a vital part of elementary-school education. I use reading material in this content area whenever it fits our reading curriculum, but there is much more that I would like to have my students exposed to. We have two more countries to study before the end of the school year. It would be wonderful to have the support of media to bring the world into our classroom. One of my ambitions as an educator is to bring about a more tolerant and compassionate world one student at a time.