Grade 7 and 8: Monday, March 25, 2013

Looking Through the Lens

We are going to begin a series of lessons on the lives of children in developing countries. Many of the resources are developed by UNICEF Canada. We are going to study the role that media plays influencing our attitudes and perceptions about developing nations and global development issues. 

Look at the following images. What do you see?

HOW WE PERCEIVE THINGS

Just as people learn how to read, they learn how to make sense out of the different symbols (letters, words and punctuation) and they learn how to interpret them. So, when they view them in the future they can understand them because they apply the rules they learned in the past to new situations. If we learn something wrong the first time, we often have a hard time "un-learning". 

For example, if you learn to spell a word wrong the first time you use it, you will often continue to struggle to spell the word correctly. 

Stereotyping works in a similar way. If think, hear or believe something about a certain group of people the first time we come in contact with them or the idea, we often continue to believe what we learned is true- even if it is not. We also have a hard time, changing the view we have of them.

This is often true when it comes to our perceptions of children and poverty in developing countries. 

TRUE OR FALSE ACTIVITY

Generally, how accurate were your guesses?

Why do you think this is?

How have your media experiences or lack of media experience (watching television and movies, reading the newspaper) influenced your responses? 

DEVELOPING/"THIRD WORLD" COUNTRIES

List of ideas associated with the term "developing world" or "third world". 

Where do these ideas come from?

What is missing from your perceptions? Why?

How might the perceptions differ if we had someone from this country in our class?

How do you think people from developing countries would feel about others' perceptions of their region?

Do you think these ideas are the norm or exceptions?

What roles do family, personality, experience, beliefs and the media play in how we see the world?

What other "filters" or "lenses" affect how we see the world?