Unit 3 - Embracing Differences & Diversity

Lesson 1: Who am I? Diversity focus

Understanding and appreciating our own multicultural identity can help us achieve tolerance and appreciation of differences among others around us. Self-identification is the first step in becoming culturally responsive and culturally sensitive. In this lesson, students will describe at least five aspects of their cultural identity and explain how at least one of those aspects shapes how they view the world.

Lesson 2: Responding to provocative targets

Many kids justify bullying kids who are different, claiming that the targets deserve what they get for being “weird” or “annoying.” This justification of intentional cruelty is a form of victim blaming. When should someone be expected to conform to society? When should society accept differences in others? In this lesson, students learn how to respond to victims of bullying that are provocative targets.

Lesson 3: Developing empathy and learning to use empathetic language

Sometimes students want to support a peer who is struggling but do not know how to help. They might say things that are judgmental, which makes the person feel worse. In this lesson plan, students learn to define the terms “empathy” and “empathetic language.” They identify at least three empathetic responses to use when a peer is in distress.

Lesson 4: Implicit Bias

An explicit idea is something we deliberately think about, while an implicit idea is an

unconscious thought or attitude that we may not be aware of. Sometimes, we hold implicit stereotypes about members of other groups or even our own group related to skill, ability, intelligence, level of hostility or violence, and other characteristics, regardless of whether the held ideas are actually true. In this lesson, students explore how our implicit biases can impact our interactions with others, and they identify strategies that people can use to try to check or interrupt implicit bias.