In the world we live today, ethnocentrism seems prevalent. Whether it's wanting to build a wall to keep foreigners out or sending a bomb into a crowd of people that worship a different religion. In today's technology rich classrooms, there are ways to open the eyes of teachers and students to embrace and accept the differences among the many people of our world. According to Julie Lindsay in the 2014 YouTube interview published by Future of Education called Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis on Flattening Classrooms, a flat classroom means, "bringing the world into your classroom and putting your classroom out to the world". I do believe that if teachers take the time to flatten our classrooms, send our students out into the world in a safe environment, they will be much better off then being confined to the 4 walls for their classroom.
Not only does flattening a classroom decrease ethnocentrism but also increases our students ethical and respectful aptitude towards those who are different than themselves. From the interview Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis on Flattening Classrooms I can imagine the understanding and appreciating that takes place between students of two different cultures. Employing technology to communicate, children can have a better understanding of others and can eventually apply this to life outside of school. Global citizenship and respect for others will hopefully be part of the positive outcomes of a flat classroom.
In my own classroom, Skype is a tool that I've used in various ways to flatten my classroom. For example, my students have completed numerous Mystery Skypes with students from inside and outside of the US, asked an author questions about what it's like to publish a book, Skyped with Molly the Fire Safety Dog during Fire Safety Week, and interviewed children from Argentina about life at their school. I've also used Kidblog and ePals to communicate with other schools around the world.
Before the prevalence of free use of Skype, I used ePals and emails to correspond with another teacher and her students from Columbia. Students in my 5th and 1st grade classes would ask and respond to questions through email. Again, this was long before any of my students had their own email accounts, thus this was all done through teacher accounts. My students learned an amazing amount of information about life in Columbia compared to life in the US. I can remember expending on many topics from our conversations and the students being so thirsty to learn more about their Colombian friends. Together, we would write a letter answering and asking questions, then I would transpose this into an email to the teacher in Columbia. A day or two later we would read the email together and have conversations about things we learned and things we wanted to know more about. Over the year we collaborated with this classroom my students gained a deeper understanding and respect for people who were different from themselves.
Just recently I participated in a project called Adventure 15 with my 4th grade students. Although there are many events that students can participate in on November 17th provided by Adventure 15, we just spent our time communicating with another classroom from Argentina. This time around my students were able to Skype with the class. The experience was much more rich and deep because of the instant ability to ask and answer questions. Many of my students in this class had never been out of Iowa, so the abundance of what they learned from this 30 minute Skype was amazing. I remember having a conversation about the fact that everyone in that Argentine classroom knew 2 languages, one being English. This one fact seemed to not only mystify my students but also triggered a new level of respect for people who live outside of the US.
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| Mystery Skype |
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| Mystery Skype |
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| What we already know from our questions during the Mystery Skype |
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| Skype with Molly the Fire Safety Dog |
Davis, V., L, Julie. [Future of Education]. (January 16, 2014). Flattening Classrooms. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVZuwIhjQvA
Ethnocentrism. (n.d.). In Dictionary.com online. Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ethnocentric?s=t
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