Ubuntu

My 8th graders focused on society: challenges society faced, challenges individuals faced because of society, how to positively contribute to society, who is in charge of society, what is society... And the list goes on.

We were going to read the short selection "Out of Bounds" by Beverley Naidoo in our Interactive Readers, but to preface this reading, the students had to know about apartheid and it's effects on South African society. We brought in the idea of interdependence and ubuntu.

Ubuntu is the philosophy that we are all connected; all humans rely and depend on one another because we are human. The idea of "I am who I am because of who we all are." We all belong to a greater whole and if one of us is humiliated, then all of us are.

This concept was kind of hard for my kids to grasp at first:

"But I don't need to rely on others, I can do what I want for myself."
"Ms. S., I'd rather be a hermit."
"The guy from Castaway didn't have to rely on others, he relied on a volleyball."

Yes, all of those were responses that I received from a variety of my students. And many of them had similar thinking. Haven't we always taught them to be independent? To rely on themselves for their success and their success alone? That no matter what their peers are doing, they should never be sucked into those negative pressures?

Yes, we've taught them that.

But ubuntu has a bigger picture. That if we are independent, we must not forget that when others need our help, we must be there for them. That if we are independent, if we realize we need the help of others, we must not hesitate to ask. That our overall success doesn't mean pushing others down in the process, but lifting everyone up. That if our peers are engaging in negative activities, then we need to figure out a way to help them. That's ubuntu.

I had to figure out an activity to make them see this. One of my coworkers suggested the rubber bands-red solo cups-string activity that she found on another teacher's blog.

I'm always up for a challenge, and you know my 8th graders were too.

We needed red solo cups (6 per group), rubber bands (one per group), and string (tie the pieces of string to the rubber bands. I would suggest 4 per rubber band so you would have groups of 4). If you clicked on the blog link, you would see the instructions for that activity - I wanted to challenge them further to show them what ubuntu was all about.

The challenge in that blog ends with students stacking all 6 cups in a pyramid using teamwork. I took it a step further and said that all group members had to close their eyes except for one. The ones that had their eyes closed could maneuver the string and rubber band apparatus to stack the cups into a pyramid, but the member with their eyes open could not touch the apparatus at all. These students were the ones that had to instruct those with their eyes closed. They were "in charge." They were "the leader."

Needless to say, that challenge to much longer than the first one. But, it was successful. After all was said and done, we sat and had a discussion.

The students realized that when everyone had their eyes open and they worked together to pull and adjust the rubber band accordingly, it was easy to accomplish the task. But, when there was only one leader and the rest of them were hindered, it was harder to do. They realized that they all must rely on each other to get something done in a cohesive, quick, and efficient manner. One person leading a society of people who are "underprivileged" or "set back" in some way is not ubuntu.

At the end, I showed them this video, "The Allegory of the Long Spoons."

We reflected on the video and how it fit into our challenge activity. Then, we took it back to our essential question about society.

By the end of the year, I didn't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times that my students brought up this activity, what it taught them, and how fun it was. They were engaged and enjoying it, but it also forced them to think about what they see as independence vs. interdependence.

Needless to say, my 10th graders are going to get the same lesson. Our year-long focus is not society, but personal responsibility. And I'm so sick of lame icebreakers, so I'm bringing in the Solo Cup Challenge to the high school level. Let's see if they're as good as my 8th graders at working together.