The Family Stories That Bind Us

            I thought the article “The Family Stories That Bind Us” was extremely interesting and offered great insight. The study showed that the students involved in the research who knew more about their family background and history tended to do better when facing challenges. As Dr. Duke stated, “the ones who knew more about their families proved to be more resilient, meaning they could moderate the effects of stress.” After observing these students after a major trauma such as 9/11, the important role of having a family narrative became very evident. The students that felt like they belonged to a family larger than their own, and had what Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush call a strong “ inter-generational self” proved to handle a situation involving others much more easily.
            After reading this article, it would make sense to develop a family history project that aimed to promote the exploration of one’s background. Being that my content area is mathematics, I could have the students talk with relatives and compare the differences in prices of anything from groceries to gas, etc. from when they were in middle/high school till now. Seeing the shift through each generation and tying in relative wages would allow the student to make connections on how hard their family has worked to reach their current level. Maybe even exploring as far back as immigrant ancestors and learning about their journey to this country in search of different dreams with however much money they had in their pocket would encourage them to explore their own dreams and financial success and gain respect and understanding of where they come from.

Bedtime Stories and Videos

            As a child my parents always read bedtime stories to me and encouraged me to pick them out and even read them myself early on. It is not until somewhat recently have I really thought about the implications of bedtime stories especially in the middle-class household such as my own. It was interesting to read that few parents actually realize that this ritual is actually preparation for the “kinds of learning and displays of knowledge expected in school”. The practice of questioning, labeling and responding which essentially defines the patterns found in classrooms is exactly what children are being introduced to through bedtime stories. Also, learning not just to take meaning from the books, but being able to talk about them is a key parallel to classroom activities. The more obvious benefits include learning to read/sound out words, spell, speak, and extend one’s imagination. Overall, bedtime stories are often chosen based on the content (learning ABCs or numbers, animals, nursery rhymes, etc.) and often teach lessons beyond the scope of the text and/or pictures. This article has only reinforced my plan to encourage bedtime story reading as the benefits are abundant.

            The video of Little Toot and the Loch Ness Monster was great in that there were deep meanings and morals beyond the cartoon story. Little Toot’s determination and exploration to quench his curiosity about the monster is an important lesson in itself – all children should be taught to follow their dreams and as Mark Twain said “Explore. Dream. Discover.” Also, this story did a good job in showing that it is not always best to go by the words of others – one should always explore for them; seeing is believing. Everyone may have an opinion or perception of a situation but one’s ultimate decision should not be fully based on others’.

            The Russian story the Four Friends about a deer, a crow, a mouse, and a crow portrayed an ideal friendship among the four animals. It shows that although each animal is different and has their own attributes; together they can help each other out and create balance during certain hardships. When the deer was trapped, the other three friends decided to use the ability of the mouse to chew through the net along with the ability of the crow to fly him there. Then, the deer used its mobility to distract the hunter so the turtle could be freed. This is a perfect display of teamwork and problem solving among friends that truly care about each other. Although this video was in Russian, the idea of the story was still evident and thus learning to associate the words with the pictures is an important step in learning a different language. Thus I think this video was great in teaching about friendships and embracing each other’s differences, as well as in using multiple strategies to get the story across (auditory, visual imagery, words).