Instant Relevance: The Year of the Pig

If you know me, you know that I'm obsessed with pigs, particularly flying pigs, cause they represent the likelihood that impossible things might happen, for example: me running a marathon. My students know that, and they laugh. When I found out that according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, this would be the year of the Pig, I was more than thrilled. 🐷 I'm fortunate to have a very diverse group of friends and we celebrate each other's cultures. So when I attended our Chinese New Year Celebration - that turned later in a Super Bowl watching party, I thought my students might be interested. It would be a good opportunity to expose them to a different culture and also tackle some measurement discussion.

On Monday, I showed them the red envelope I received as a present, told them about the party, the food we had and asked them what they knew about Chinese New Year. Some mentioned they had heard of it before, most didn't. Then I told them I was curious about how they measured their year, what was the difference between a lunar calendar and ours. Since, we are starting our measurement unit, I thought we could explore it . We brainstormed a few questions, and I listed them as "challenge" questions. I told them it wasn't a mandatory thing, just something to ponder about and research to work on our curiosity. At the beginning, they seemed excited about the idea, they came up with good questions, so I hoped that at least a few would carry on with the questions.

On Tuesday, I wished them a Happy New Year - Gung Hei Fat Coi, and remind them about our questions. They asked again if it was a requirement, I'm afraid that since it wasn't, they dismissed it. I left that day to attend the TCEA conference, and so far I haven't receive any Classroom comment about our question.

I think that the best idea would have been to have immediate research time, right after brainstorming our questions. Since we were in a crunch of time before checkpoints and me leaving for the conference, I left it open to them. Next time, I will make time to follow the question.

Gung Hei Fat Coi #relevance #mesqir2019 #makeitreal #culturalmindset