Teaching and learning materials

The overall aim of this activity is to make students think about the membership or rejection in a social group. It seeks to ensure that students can put themselves in the shoes of both an integrated member of a large cultural group and an isolated person or a minority group.
The activity is presented as a very "physical" where students must make circles (shoulder against shoulder) in groups of 6-8 people. There must be a student outside the circle (the outsider) and he will try to enter for 2 or 3 minutes. There will also be an observer student who will take note of the strategies used by the outsider and the members of the circle, as well as verbal exchanges and everything that may seem important. This first part ends when all the students forming the circle have played the role of outsider.
Then there will be an assessment of the activity and the question is what it feels like being into the circle and out of it. The class will discuss about the strategies that were used and the exchanges that occurred.
Then, there can be a discussion about the importance of belonging to a cultural group in our society. The teacher asks if sometimes we prefer to be an outsider or to belong to a group. The class tries to relate this experience to reality and see the privileges of being into "the circle" and how minorities try to get in.
This activity offers alternatives and suggestions for follow up. There is also an English version for this activity: http://www.eycb.coe.int/edupack/34.html.

Approach: Intercultural

Type of material: xxxxxx

Source:
Direction de la Jeunesse et du Sport, Conseil de l’Europe. Activity from the Kit pédagogique Tous différentS-tous égaux (2nd edition).
http://eycb.coe.int/edupack/fr_42.html