Mexico

III: MEXICAN CULTURE

Part 1: What is Culture?

Introduction:
Culture can be explored in many ways. The lesson plan below, written by June Murray, takes the approach of introducing students to culture by using a family's home and possessions as a jumping off point for discussion. The resources section contains several other lesson plans and a unit plan that also introduce students to the concept of culture and its components and make comparisons between world cultures and American culture.

Overview:
Students will familiarize themselves with nine components of culture and analyze images of families of different cultures to identify these nine components of culture. After analyzing another culture, students will explore these nine components of their own culture in an informal essay. The extensions section contains instructions for creating a Mexican Cultural Fair in the classroom.

Procedure:

1. Begin either by asking students to generate a list of components of culture or by distributing the handout which highlights the nine components of culture. Ask students to attempt to explain each of these components. If necessary, give them examples to help them approach the definitions.
   
   Compare the definitions and examples that follow with the students' own definitions.
   
   Definitions:
   Social organization: the way a culture groups its members in order for the members to work together to meet their basic needs.

   Symbols: anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture. Humans have the capacity to transform elements into symbols in order to make sense of their lives. Manipulating symbols allows us to engage with others within our own cultural system.

   Language: system of symbols that allows members of a society to communicate with one another.

   Customs and Traditions: rules of behavior. The following five terms are subcategories of customs and traditions.

   Values are culturally defined standards by which people assess desirability, goodness, and beauty, which serve as guidelines for social living.

   Beliefs are specific statements that are held to be true and are based on values. For example: If you work hard and make lots of money you will be happy.

   Norms are rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members. Norms reflect values.

   Mores are society’s standard of proper moral conduct.

   Folkways are customs for routine casual interaction (the difference between polite and rude behavior). Individuals have more personal discretion with folkways.

   Technology (Material Culture): Tangible human creations, knowledge that a society applies to its environment that effects the way members of a culture live.

   The Arts: products of the human imagination, which entertain and reinforce culture's values, or reveal things about a culture.

   Religion: a system of beliefs that is created to offer explanations for life’s challenges, based in the supernatural.

   Forms of Government: people or persons who hold power in a society, and a society’s laws and political institutions.

2. Divide the class into groups and give each group a component of culture chart and a picture of one of the families in the book Material Culture. Do not give students any of the information about the family that is provided in the book at this time. If using the poster set, do not allow students to look at the backs of the posters. Write the following questions on the board and ask them to begin by discussing them.How big is the family?
   Describe its members.
   What are their possessions?
   Which possessions do you think are most valuable?
   What evidence, if any, do you see of the nine components? (They can fill in the chart or just discuss what elements they identify.)
   What questions do you have left about these people?
3. Once students have discussed the family in the picture and answered the questions to the best of their ability, distribute the information about the families from the book. Give them time to compare their analysis to the information provided.
4. They can then prepare a short informal oral report for the class on the family in their picture and the accuracy of their initial assessment of them.
5. For homework, ask them to wander around their house and write an informal essay on what the content of their house reveals about their culture, utilizing the components of culture as a basis.
6. They can present their essays to the class or meet in the same groups and share what they wrote. The class or group can make some generalizations about culture and what their possessions reveal. They can also discuss what they think their families would consider their most valuable possessions.

Extensions:
This lesson extension, also created by June Murray (in the context of Nepalese culture), focuses students on one specific culture, in this case, Mexico, by asking students to research and present the components of one culture in the setting of a culture fair.

Activity:
In small groups, students will be assigned one of the 9 components of culture identified on their culture charts, in apition to one group being responsible for researching the geography of Mexico.

Each group will be given a handout listing Web sites where they can begin their search. After researching their component thoroughly, each group will transform that information into a “booth” that will be displayed during the cultural fair that takes place the following day. Standardizing the size of the student displays will depend on the size of the classroom.

For homework students should work on creating the props they wish to incorporate into their informational display.

The following day the groups will have time to set up their “booths.” Each group must create a schedule so that the booth is manned at all times and each student has a chance to explore the fair. Students will then wander through the fair taking notes on their culture charts and blank maps filling them out with information from the various presentations.

After the students have visited all the booths, the class can discuss what they learned about Mexico and its people.

For homework following the fair, students should respond to the question: How are values reflected in a culture? By reflecting on what they have learned about Mexico and what they think their own culture says about them, they should generate many responses to this question.

Suggested Web sites for a Mexican Cultural Fair:

LonelyPlanet.com
Click on world search, then North America, then Mexico for an introduction to Mexico.

Discovering Mexico, a National Geographic article

Looking at Ourselves and Others. This Peace Corps unit plan on culture and tolerance is an excellent way to introduce students of all ages to culture and methods of identifying elements of their cultures. The lessons also encourage students to confront stereotypes about other cultures by making connections and building community. In particular, the two introductory lessons, "Everyone has a Culture and Everyone is Different" and "The Iceberg," are great ways to begin a classroom conversation about culture.

Modern Culture. This lesson from National Geographic heightens students' awareness of culture through a comparison of their own cultures to the cultures of Egypt in A.D. 1, Spain in A.D. 1000, and New York A.D. 2000.

Culture and Environment: What's the Connection?
Through a simulation game, this interesting lesson, written by Maureen Leew and Thomas B. Riley, explores the relationship between culture and environment.