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For me, the challenge with teaching multiculturalism to college-aged students is that many are not willing to make the connection that gaining an understanding of different cultures means acknowledging and exploring difficult histories. It's easy to say we are comfortable with the expression of culture from a pop culture or media standpoint, but we are often lacking in our knowledge of the story behind the heroes and icons we tend to celebrate or emulate. I'll give you two examples. To more deeply understand and appreciate the cast of the Jersey Shore and the tight-knit connection between them is to also appreciate that Italian- Americans share a particularly strong bond that happened as a result of immigration and discrimination in the early 20th century. To more deeply understand and appreciate the marriage of Cardi B and Offset as part of hip-hop, street, and trap culture is also to appreciate the history of Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican music as it developed over generations of colonization and survivance. Beats and music are key to the storytelling culture of African Americans and Islanders.

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To begin with, as a student in grad school, I have still hardly learned about the Chicano/a Blowouts in an educational setting. This makes the prospect of teaching students about this even harder. As for thought about developmental appropriateness, I think this lesson plan will work well for eleventh- and twelfth-graders. The cognitive load of synthesizing and understanding the various reasons for the blowout will be pretty high I think when combined with the contemporary connections they will be asked to make. I don't think parents would be upset with this content, especially if this is taught within a unit that focuses on segregation and Brown v. Board of Education of 'Social Revolutions' since this revolution was also instrumental in the passing of Brown.

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I think some of the promises and challenges we will face as instructor would be the interest level of students learning this material and how the students will react to it. I think developmental wise I think you could introduce the topic in middle school to the students and do some lessons on the topic. Student engagement on this topic could vary. I think you will have some students who will be very interested in learning about this and others who might not be interested or even some students who it might bother if they had ancestors who went through that time period. I remember learning about the topic of Pearl Harbor in school and learning about how Japanese Americans were treated in the internment camps. Learning about how those people had to live and how they were forced to leave their homes. I think parents would be happy to know that their children are learning about historical events.
CJ Brown

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It is my opinion that lessons about national history of this sort are important for students to hear. When students learn about impactful events and can connect it back to their own current experiences, I believe that they become more invested in what happens with their education because it is no longer about their individual education. Instead, education becomes a group endeavor where the goal is to help everyone have equality in opportunities, resources, and access to knowledge. When you can get people to understand the importance of compassion and working together, we realize the true power of advocating for others and standing up for what is right. It is very hard to change the world on your own. However, when you have friends, family, and supporters by your side, real change is possible. I do not think that parents would disagree with this notion, however there is a caveat. The caveat is that I think this type of education needs to be done responsibly so that it does not foster resentment and mistrust of the system. Instead, I think the emphasis needs to be on what can be done and is currently taking place to remedy and fix the issues of the past. When the emphasis sways towards this end of the spectrum, I think students will be more inspired to make change rather than live in victimhood full of anger and disdain.

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I feel like this topic would be appreciated more by upper elementary/middle school grade levels. Personally, as someone that wants to teach more 2nd-4th grade, this subject may be a bit advanced for them, and probably not in the curriculum depending on the district. However, students that are in the fifth grade or above could benefit from this lesson, as well as introduce concepts that may come up as they approach middle and high school. Teaching this subject could be tricky to those that may have a personal connection to this subject. There may be students that find history fascinating, and others that may find it boring. This lesson can be made engaging if done correctly. I didn't learn about Pearl Harbor until I was in high school, but I knew about it through my own interest in learning about history at home. It's very important to teach kids about all parts of history, and parents would be supportive of having their kids learn this subject, as well as give you recounts of their personal connections through this subject.

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It is important for students to know about history. They learn history, so history is not repeated. Students need to learn about events that happened, so they know what can happen again and decide they want it in our society or not. Students also come together and talk about it, especially if they might relate to that topic. But as a teacher, you need to be careful when teaching students about this kind of stuff because it could go badly. But i do believe if we teach our students about, they will form their own opinions and it will be a good thing to do.

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I think this would be a great role play activity for students to learn and feel what it was like during this time period in the U.S. After reading the lesson plan I would suggest doing this in 6th grade and up, maybe 5th graders. They get broken into groups where they get to conduct research based on their groups beliefs. After some time they hold a round table meeting to discuss what the bets course of action is for all parties and each party. The end goal of course is for the students to realize that the Native Americans did not need to be forced off their land, and there could have been a compromise. In such a heartbreaking time of US history, it is important students have a chance to see how unfair we were to the Natives. Once they come together as a group and come up with a fair resolution they might even wonder why they are smarter than lawmakers from the past! Of course a good teacher leading this discussion is crucial, but the peer to peer dialogue is where the most will be learned.

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This would be a great lesson for not just high school, but middle school as well. It's important for students to be able to trace the paths and patterns from history to the present to be able to analyze cause and effect. It's also important for students to be able to make personal connections to foster engagement in the content, as well as have them draw connections to other protests they have seen in their communities and/or the media. Learning about the Chicano/a walkouts will not only teach them an important piece of cultural history but demonstrate that they too can stand up for the rights of others and show them what that could look like. Personally, I had never heard about the Chicano/a school blowouts in any of my schooling. I can imagine that learning about such a movement could be both thought-provoking and empowering. It can and should still be taught so that students can not only learn more facets of our nation's history, but also know that people like them can take action to eliminate systemic injustices.

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I think the biggest challenge for multicultural lesson plans as an instructor is that will my students understand this? Being in elementary many students don't know world history or social relations. They don't have knowledge of any World Wars, the Civil Rights movement, September 11th, and so on. Part of learning about culture and relations is also knowing history. These are elementary students and they're still learning the fundamentals of mathematics and literature. How can they at such a young age explore these heavy topics like racism, protest, immigration, and foreign relations? I remember my students were reading a close read book in class about Jackie Robinson "Testing the Ice". Part of Robinson's journey is combating the racial tensions of a black man playing in the early days of the MLB. My main take away is how do you teach these big topics to children who have never grasped this concept before?

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After reading the description for the "Cherokee Removal" role-play lesson activity, I can see benefits as well as difficulties in its appropriate classroom implementation. On the positive side, I believe this lesson creates a good framework for allowing students to develop their own historical context and draw more unbiased conclusions about the political and social climate underlying the Cherokee removal. This also allows students to put themselves in the "shoes" of various groups in the era, helping students relate the issues of the past to their own feelings and thoughts.
On the negative side, I can see the difficulties and the social nuance required to pull this lesson off appropriately. In terms of parents, I'm currently interning at a school that removed their culturally insensitive mascot the "North Haven Indian" less than two years ago. Unfortunately, I can see parents contesting the Cherokee Removal play for similar reasons that parents staunchly defend (to this day) the North Haven Indian. I don't personally agree with this sentiment, but I acknowledge that there's a pervasive idea in some parents that acknowledging American historical wrongdoings is akin to disparaging the nation and its values.
On the other hand, I could see students and parents alike being resistant to the idea of taking on roles such as "slave owner" and "slave" and playing these roles in class.    I could see how this could be potentially offensive to some students or, conversely, create a platform for a student with offensive intent to voice it.
Ultimately, if enacted responsibly and moderated carefully by the instructor, this role play could be a successful activity to help students contextualize the inhumanities of the Trail of Tears.

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This lesson plan promises to expose students to the shared experience of black and white sharecroppers undergoing oppressive circumstances on plantations during the Great Depression. This lesson has students create a dialogue from the perspective of sharecroppers, so it forces students to step outside of themselves and into the shoes of someone who would have faced these conditions during the time. I think that the readings, discussion prompts, and dialogue exercise are engaging and encourage critical thinking which is wonderful. Organizing to fight against oppressive conditions that transcends time and space and can inspire all of us. Some aspects of this may be concerning; for example, one of the discussion questions asks students to guess whether a union organizer is black or white based on dialogue between two tenant farmers. I think that for this lesson, it would be more important to have students submit a thoughtful reflection on their feelings and attitudes towards the entire situation, not just whether the union organizer is black or white.