#008 - Why Cultural Diversity is ESSENTIAL In Education 🌍📚

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Here in Australia, we have people from all over the

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world and we have this incredible opportunity to

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connect with them, to learn from them and to bring their

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natural resources into our classrooms. Welcome to

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neuroeducation. where we're exploring the neuroscience of

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how to switch on the brain to supercharge learning. I'll be sharing

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with you innovative teaching techniques, effective parenting strategies,

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and educational advocacy. I'm your host, Angie Dee.

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Together, let's revolutionize children's learning. Hello,

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everybody. Thank you so much for joining us again on

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Neuroeducation Podcast with Angie Dee. Today,

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we're going to be talking about what are some great resources

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that are easy to source and cheap, if

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not free, that you can do at

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home with your children or at your family

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daycare, childcare center, school, wherever it may be. to

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explore the world and even our letters and

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our numbers. So I wanted to start

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by a absolutely fantastic method

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of exploring the world from

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our own little backyard. There's a beautiful song

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by Ella Jenkins. And in the song, she says, we

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can travel on a boat. We can travel on a plane. We

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can travel in a song and we can travel in a game. And

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she goes on to say all the different ways that we can travel, but really we can

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travel. through music, through dance, there's

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so many things that we can do to explore the world right

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from our backyard. When I was doing some volunteering

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to teach English to refugees at a fantastic school

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here in Brisbane, Australia called Milpera High, I

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learned so much about the world, so much about languages,

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cultures, dance, food, from all the amazing cultural

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experiences I had right there at that school. And

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how do we do this? Because the students were

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sharing, parents were sharing. And I

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felt even after I went to another country, which

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I went to Tahiti in 2004, I

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loved Tahiti, loved the people, loved the food, loved

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the dance, but I didn't feel like I had a huge, let's

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say cultural, culturally personal experience because

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while I went to a cultural show and I watched the dance, uh,

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I ate the food, stayed at a beautiful resort. I

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didn't feel like I got to really meet the people. But

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here in Australia, and I would say in many Western countries,

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we have people from all over the world and

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we have this incredible opportunity to

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connect with them, to learn from them and to bring their

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natural resources into our classrooms. And

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a lot of these parents and grandparents, they want

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to share, you know, If

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you come from another country and you've come all

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the way to a country that speaks a dramatically different language, lives

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dramatically different kind of style of life, it's

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not only an honor and a privilege, but it's just

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so nice to be able to acknowledge a totally

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different way of life that they have come from and their children

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and their grandchildren. So it's beautiful

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to honor that in our schools, in our centers, family

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daycare centers, and in our homes. And there's lots of ways we

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can do that by inviting friends to share different cultural things.

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But as a teacher, something that I really enjoyed

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doing was bringing people in, um, family

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members, mothers, fathers, grandparents, to speak

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about their experience in different countries and come to share different things,

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whether it's a song, whether it was some delicious

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food or they even got to cook some special food

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from different countries. There are schools where I

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have seen doing a cultural expose where

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they're doing a beautiful expo, children picking different countries

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and getting to share all different things. But in terms of

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some DIY resources, One

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of my absolute favorite activities, geography

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activities to do with children, is to create

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a collage of the world. And it is free

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and easy. It literally didn't cost me a

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cent for this geography project that

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I did with children that lasted months. And

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they got to come back to it and they kept adding and adding and adding to it.

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So what I did was I wanted to create a

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massive map of the world, but I wanted it to be

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a visual map of the world. So I went to

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a shop that sold blinds and I asked if

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they had any cutoffs. Sure enough, they had

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plenty. And one of the cutoffs was maybe

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four metres by two metres. So it was a huge piece

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of canvas. And I

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painted the background blue and

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we outlined all of the different continents. And

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I went to my local travel store and I

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asked them, do you have any magazines that you don't use?

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Because travel stores always have magazines

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that are outdated. whatever the tours were to

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Rome the year before, it's updated. It's got a new price

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or whatever it may be. And so they have all of these magazines. So

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I brought these magazines from all over the world in

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a big box. I had glue and I had scissors.

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The only two things that probably cost me money, but I already had a lot of those resources. And

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we had this massive map of the world and different children got

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to choose different continents. Asia, Africa,

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North or South America, Europe, Australia, Antarctica. And

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they got to cut out the pictures that they thought visually showed

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the continent, the beauty and the wonders, the people, the food.

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And lo and behold, after several months,

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because they worked on it maybe for half an hour here or half an hour there,

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We had this incredibly beautiful canvas

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that was this visual map of the world of some of

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the most beautiful places you can imagine. But what was amazing

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about this process was like the

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saying goes, the journey. it's

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not about the destination. Because the children would ask

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so many questions. Why are the rocks that

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colour in this country? And where is this? And why is

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the water formation like that? And why are

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they dressing like that? And where is this from? And We

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did so much deep and meaningful learning, which was

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from the children's interest, which we know their brains activated

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when they're interested and they're engaged and they're asking questions. We

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did so much beautiful, deep and meaningful learning around all

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of these countries, these landmarks about the

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natural landscapes, the people, the food, the culture, the

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customs, the religious traditions. so many

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of these things through these beautiful images that sparked the

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interest of the children. It was such a fabulous project

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and I've done it replicated in different ways in

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different schools around Australia that I've worked in but

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it's one of my favourite go-to experiences that

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you can bring in a world of learning by

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obviously asking parents, asking grandparents, but also creating

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this beautiful visual display and exploring the questions that the

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children have of different things from different countries and

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continents along the way. So Montessori,

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I have to do a shout out to their, one

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of the most amazing materials because Maria Montessori was

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brilliant in the way that she created materials that

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were very hands-on and interactive and child led. And

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the Montessori globe that children, even as

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toddlers start with, is a world globe

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that just has blue silky paint for the water

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and rough sandpaper for land. And that's what they start

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with. Here is the water and here's the land. That's what our

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world's made up of. The next continent goes the

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next globe goes to the continents. So rather

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than having all of the

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countries broken up to the hundreds of countries and children having to

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figure out all these countries, it's just Asia, Africa,

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North and South America, Europe, Australia, Antarctica. And the

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children get to explore these by having different

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color codes for each of the continents. And each

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of these continents then have their own little folder and

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you can have special pictures of food and people and

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religious traditions and landscapes from all these different countries that

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are color coded back to the continent. And then an

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object box with fun little things, whether it's magnets or

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little artifacts from those countries. and it's a fun way

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of having something in the classroom that children can explore different

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parts of the world and they can build up on it with magazines just

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like you made a you could make a poster you can make little things to

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add to the folder as well and it gives them that little sense of um

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I, you know, I feel like a little bit of independence that

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they're contributing to it. In the same way, we'll get to

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ABC letter mastery resources in another episode, but

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you can do the same thing, exploring countries of

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different, of different letters, animals, foods

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from around the world. And you can break these into all of

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the letters from A to Z. And it's a fun way to explore the

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letters and practice the letters by exploring the world around

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you as well. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you

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for tuning in. Please, if you can do our

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information down below on all the links below. I'll catch you on