Pre-­‐visit Teacher’s Guide for Women Hold up Half the Sky Grades 8-­‐12 Experience Presented by the Education Department of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center 50 E. Freedom Way Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 (513) 333.7500 www.freedomcenter.org A Program Designed by the Education Department Skirball Cultural Center 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90049 (310) 440-­‐4662 www.skirball.org Table of Contents: 1) Letter to the teacher 2) Lesson: Defining Oppression/Defining Opportunity 3) Lesson: True/False Quiz 4) Lesson: Stories of Women Worldwide 5) Vocabulary List 4) Appendices A-­‐D: Excerpts from the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide 6) Appendix E: For Further Reading 7) Appendix F: Images for Defining Oppression/Defining Opportunity Lesson Letter to the teacher Dear Teacher, Thank you for choosing to visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center with your students. We are looking forward to welcoming you! Your students will be exploring Women Hold Up Half the Sky, a groundbreaking exhibition that takes its title and inspiration from Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s bestselling book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Knopf, 2009). Its compelling message is that the worldwide oppression of women is the most urgent and pervasive human rights cause of our time, and that gender equality can help solve many of the world’s most severe problems — from poverty, to violence, to child mortality. Some of the content in this exhibition will be difficult for students. The exhibition is comprised of stories of women overcoming traumatic experiences such as physical abuse, rape, loss of a family member in childbirth, and trafficking. During the tour, students will explore the galleries and discuss with one another and with our trained docents the issues faced by women and girls around the world. The program allows for plenty of processing and questioning, with the hope that students will feel comfortable sharing their ideas and talking through the content. At times, they also will have the chance to interact with a visiting guest speaker; a person who has experience working in the field on behalf of women and girls. These pre-­‐visit lessons were designed to sensitize your students to the subject matter they will encounter and to start them thinking about the potential that their own involvement and action can have. We hope that your students leave Women Hold Up Half the Sky with their eyes opened and their hearts inspired to do something to make a difference; a value at the core of what the Skirball Cultural Center & Freedom Center is all about. On the day of your visit, we will provide you with materials that list a number of options to activate students to direct action. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at the Freedom Center. Richard Cooper Kieli Ferguson Manager of Interpretive Services Education Initiatives & Visitor Experiences & Distance Learning Freedom Center Freedom Center Lesson: Defining Oppression/Defining Opportunity Connections to your Freedom Center visit In the exhibition, students will encounter examples of both oppression and opportunity. This activity allows students to examine these concepts and connect them to their own experiences. Activity Goal Students will verbalize their notions of “oppression” and “opportunity,” and, by sharing their thoughts with other students, develop expanded definitions of both concepts. Activity Objectives Students view a variety of images on cards and select one that communicates “oppression” and one that communicates “opportunity” and then they explain their choices to a partner. Students discuss examples of oppression & opportunity from media stories or stories from people they know. Set-­‐up and Materials Print out the images in Appendix F, double-­‐sided. Alternately, you could project the images from this document. Step-­‐by-­‐Step Procedure a. Distribute image sheets to each student. One side shows images that signify “oppression,” and the other shows images for “opportunity.” b. Ask students to look at the “oppression” side and choose an image that they think represents “oppression.” Give them no more than 30 seconds to do this. c. Split students into groups of 8-­‐10. d. In groups, have them explain to each other why they picked the picture they did. e. Ask each group to share out briefly. Using their words, make a list of descriptors for “oppression” on your clipboard and verbalize what you are writing to create a group consensus of what “oppression” means. f. Mix up the groups and repeat for “opportunity.” g. Synthesize the class definitions for both words and write on the board. Activity Reflection Ask students if anyone wants to share an example of oppression or opportunity. This could be something students read about, something you covered in class earlier in the year, something they saw on TV, or even something that happened to someone they know. If no one offers, have a brief example story ready to stimulate the conversation. Conclusion Have students read one of the excerpts from the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, included in this pre-­‐visit packet, and complete the discussion questions: o What is the issue that this person is (these people are) working on? What oppressive condition is this person working to change? o What did they do to combat their problem? How did they turn a situation of oppression into opportunity? o What was the end result? o What support did this person receive in order to do this work? o What is the lasting impact on this person’s community? o How do you think this person’s life changed based on this experience? Lesson: True/False Quiz Connections to your Freedom Center visit This activity will provide students with a little bit of base knowledge about the status of women worldwide. The information revealed in this activity will be built upon during the visit to the exhibition. Activity Goal Students will challenge their own notions about what life is like for women both domestically and worldwide. Activity Objective Students will take a true/false quiz, given verbally by the teacher, and examine their responses. Step-­‐by-­‐Step Procedure 1) Read the following questions aloud and ask students to guess whether they are true or false. • 60 million girls today aged 17 or younger are married. (True, and many are married to men over twice their age) • In most countries, it is illegal for a girl to marry before the age of 17. (false) • Domestic violence affects approximately 1 in 25 women worldwide. (false) • 1 in 3 of the world’s women will experience violence in her lifetime. (true) • One woman every minute dies from pregnancy-­‐related causes. (true) • The highest cause of death for women in the developing world is HIV / AIDS. (false) • 1 in 5 women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape. (true) • More than 60% of the world’s out-­‐of-­‐school youth are girls. (true) • The percentage of boys out of school is greater than the percentage of boys. (false) • The United States has one of the highest percentages of women in government worldwide. (false) • Rwanda has the highest percentage of women in its legislature (True, it’s 49%). • Slavery has been eradicated world-­‐wide. (false) • The United Nations estimates that more than 12 million people are held in some form of slavery right now. (true) • People around the world spend 80 times the amount of money on pet food than on health care for expectant mothers and their babies. (true) • International aid funds maternal health in the billions of dollars each year. (false) • There is no slavery in America. (false) •
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Los Angeles is one of the highest points of entry into the United States for trafficked slaves. (true) When wives are given access to business, education, and health, their husbands suffer. (false) When women are given control of a family’s finances, children’s health and education increase by 20%. (true) 2) As you are reading the questions, star the ones that caused the greatest reaction. 3) Break students into groups. Re-­‐read the starred questions or write them on the board and have students discuss why they think they were so surprised by those facts. 4) Have groups share out. Conclusion Have students read one of the excerpts from the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, included in this pre-­‐visit packet, and complete the discussion questions: o What is the issue that this person is (these people are) working on? What oppressive condition is this person working to change? o What did they do to combat their problem? How did they turn a situation of oppression into opportunity? o What was the end result? o What support did this person receive in order to do this work? o What is the lasting impact on this person’s community? o How do you think this person’s life changed based on this experience? Lesson: Stories of Women Worldwide Connections to your Freedom Center visit The exhibition Women Hold Up Half the Sky is based on a book by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Both are Pulitzer Prize-­‐winning journalists who report on human rights issues from around the globe, inspiring many to take action to help others. Some of the stories highlighted in these excerpts are included in the Skirball exhibition. Activity Goal Students will be inspired by stories of people who have made a difference in the lives of women. Activity Objective Students will read excerpts from the book in “jigsaw” configuration and then discuss as a whole class. Step-­‐by-­‐Step Procedure 1) Chose one of the stories in Appendices A-­‐D: Excerpts from the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. 2) Break students into groups and have them read one of the excerpts in jigsaw format. 3) As a group, discuss the following questions: • What is the issue that this person is (these people are) working on? What oppressive condition is this person working to change? • What did they do to combat their problem? How did they turn a situation of oppression into opportunity? • What was the end result? • What support did this person receive in order to do this work? • What is the lasting impact on this person’s community? • How do you think this person’s life changed based on this experience? 4) Have groups present their excerpt to the larger group. You may want to chart the answers to the questions to look for commonalities between the stories. Conclusion Ask students to brainstorm a list of things that they might do in their own community to support women.
Vocabulary list These words occur in some form or another in the exhibition. You may want to familiarize students with these words prior to their visit. Activism Advocacy Awareness Disenfranchisement Empowerment Fistula Genocide Microfinance Microloan Opportunity Oppression Refugee Slavery Solidarity Trafficking Tzedakah Appendix E: For Further Reading I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced (non-­‐fiction) By Nujood Ali Sold (Fiction) By Patricia Mccormick A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman (non-­‐
fiction) By Lisa Shannon 34 Million Friends of the Women of the World (non-­‐fiction) By Jane Roberts This Child will be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President. (non-­‐fiction) By Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations…One School at a Time (non-­‐fiction) By Greg Mortenson & David Relin Appendix F: Images of Oppression Images of Opportunity