Task 2
Responding to Rap point 1
Term 2, Week 5: week beginning 25 May, 2009
Read and enjoy the texts in My People, my place, in order to respond to Task 2.
Ask your parents or grandparents:
- Why is our cultural background important? Why do we need to know about it?
- Tell me some messages for living a good life that our culture says are important.
Post your class response to the rap blog once your teacher has approved the final message. You are welcome to blog in as individual students if you wish! You might wish to respond to the comments from other rappers. Remember to sign off with the name of your group and your school OR your name but DON”T give us your surnames in your user names or sign offs. Please tell us your school name when you sign off!
The Planning & programming activities will help teachers.
Go to the Leave a reply at the bottom of this page to post your response. You will need to log in, post a response and wait for moderation.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Hallo everyone
You are welcome to blog in as a class group OR as individual students. Just leave your comment down the bottom, by clicking on Comments or Leave a Reply. Please DON’T use your surnames in your user names and pass words but DO tell us which school you are from when you sign off at the end of your message!
This week you have been reading some of the interviews with Aboriginal residents of Western Sydney and they have been talking about why people and place are so connected. This week we also look at the messages which your culture says are important for living a good life. Take the time to ask your family and friends what they think really matters. Find out about the cultural background of everyone in your group or class. We want to hear where people come from and what they believe in. It’s great if we can hear stories about what individual students have to say – just remember no surnames please! I can say that my granny always taught me that I should never let the sun go down on my anger – she really wanted me to sort out any issues or arguments before the end of every day, so I could go to bed peacefully and in friendship with my family. I can’t wait to read what you have to say and the messages you come up with for leading a good life…
Cheers
Lizzie
May 26th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Hello again rappers!
Today we read Maureen Wenzel’s interview in “My People, my place”. We noticed that Maureen thinks that a lot of culture and identity issues revolve around “Respect”, and this is one of our school’s four core values.
Grandparents are very important to our identity and culture. Mum will say, “Clean your room, Stefan!” but grandparents will ask, “How will you look after yourself when you’re older if you don’t clean your room?”
Our parents say, “Quayde, do your homework!”, but grandparents will say, “If you don’t work now in Year 5 and 6, you’ll struggle in high school.”
Mum’s the expert with English homework, but Dad’s the expert with maths. Nan says, “Come here and I’ll test you.” Or “Doing homework jogs your memory.” Parents just say, “Look it up in the dictionary,” and I’m allergic to dictionaries.
Mothers say, “Clean your room, because you have to!” but grandparents will say, “If you clean your room, you won’t trip over stuff during the night.”
Our grandparents like to spoil us. Parents give us treats sometimes, but not as much as grandparents. That’s why Mr McLean organises the Book Fair to be running during Grandparents’ Day!
We should always respect our elders.
Courteney, Laura, Rasharna, Anis, Lachlan, Amira,
Blake, Stefan, Quayde, Richie, Tony, Joel and Nat,
in 5/6D at Penrith PS.
May 26th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Hello rappers!
We read Daphne Bell’s interview from “My People, my place”. We liked how Daphne always asked her father for advice, but he never told her just one solution.
Advice our parents and grandparents give us:
“If you have trouble with friends, just ignore it and be yourself.”
“Always think twice before you do something.”
“Choose proper friends, not just those who make you do stuff.”
“Stay away from trouble.”
“Always do good work. If you don’t, it becomes a bad habit and you’ll still be doing it that way when you grow up.”
“Never go too much with one friend. Keep a limit, like a car’s speed limit.”
“If I ask ‘What’s for dinner?’ my Mum jokes ‘Go eat grubs from the ground.’ Mum’s mother probably told her the same thing when she was little.” “It’s like a figure of speech.”
A Sri Lankan message is to be honest and treat your elders well.
An Iranian saying is “Never leave your mouth open when eating.”
In Fijian culture, you must never keep knocking on the toilet door when brothers or sisters are in there. You should have respect.
In Aboriginal culture, we respect the Elders and treat people like you want to be treated.
From Todd, Naeem, Zach, Tanish, Maddy, Shehzil, Sweden, Jesse,
Matthew, Tommy, Gemma, Monique, Kayla, and Jason,
in 5/6D @ Public School.
May 26th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Good day!
Thanks so much Penrith rappers in 5/6D for your report back on the ideas and advice offered within different cultures and by our families – to help us live a good life and build a strong identity. I am glad that some of you enjoyed reading Maureen Wenzel’s interview, while others read Daphne Bell’s interview. It’s great to read as much as you enjoy in My People, My Place – you don’t have to read every interview, of course!
I really appreciate you including the separate ideas that people can have – so we can hear people’s voices and beliefs coming through and we can ALL learn!
Cheers
Lizzie
May 27th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Hi rappers,
The three groups of 5B rappers (Besties, Bees and Grasshoppers) realised today that, while we all know the names of the cultures our families come from, we do not know a lot about how these cultures affect our daily lives, or how they help us to shape our identities. This week, we will do some research – for homework – by interviewing our parents and grandparents about our cultural backgrounds.
5B Besties are from the following cultures: USA (”Can be a dangerous place!”), native American, Canadian, Aboriginal, Irish, Scottish, English, German, Kiwi (New Zealand), and Pacific Islands.
5B Bees are from the following cultures: Irish, English (”The Queen lives there!”), Iranian (”We came here to give my brother better opportunities at university”), English, Welsh, Bosnian (”I’m going there this term to see my mother’s parents”), Scottish, South African, Croatian, and Thai (”After my holiday to Thailand, I saw on the TV that there was fighting between the government and the soldiers and I thought, ‘Is that my country?’”)
5B Grasshoppers are from the following cultures: Aboriginal, Irish, Scottish (”The Loch Ness monster is from Scotland”), English, German, New Zealand (my step father is Maori and tells me folk tales”), French, Egyptian (”They have camels and pyramids!”), Indian (”There are elephants!”) and Tongan.
5B Besties read the interview with Steve, of Miimali.
5B Bees read the interview with Denise of the Mt Druitt community.
5B Grasshoppers read about Eric, the Elder from Ngunnawal Country.
The common themes of these readings were “Respect” (one of our school’s four core values), being proud, and going forward (our school motto is “Forward With Pride”!) Seeing these words highlighted in the interviews made us feel good about our own identities.
From 5B, Penrith PS
May 28th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Thanks so much for sharing about your cultural backgrounds, 5B groups. I am really enjoying reading what you have all been up to! Thanks for reading the interviews and picking out the common themes of respect, pride and going forward….
I look forward to hearing what your families told you are key messages for living a good life.
Cheers
Lizzie
May 28th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Hello again,
This week in class we read My People My Place.
We found the opinions interesting and the questions and answers gave us a feeling of how important it is to know where you come from. We answered the questions in groups of 2 to 3 and shared our ideas. Some responses included:
We need to pass our culture onto the younger generations to understand and appreciate who we are today and we need to know who we are and where we are going.
To make us strong, we need to believe in ourselves and set ourselves goals, connect to our family and culture, be a part of family and other events and to listen to the stories we are taught.
At Mount Hutton we value our family, life, our traditions and land, and we respect other people’s beliefs.
The stories that should be told are about respect, morals, childhood and appreciating the struggles people have in their lives.
By Emily, Jess, Nathara, Lachlan, Jordan, Travis, Harrison Yr 5/6,
Mount Hutton PS
May 28th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Hi everyone,
We had a very interesting discussion in class today. We pretended we had to go to a kindergarten class to pass on advice about why our culture is important and the key advice for living a good life.
Our class believes that our cultural background is really important because it shapes our ideas about who we are and what our family values. Our cultural background provides us with answers about our family and ourselves. Our class believes our cultural background and family are two of the most important parts of our identity.
We believe the key advice we would pass on to younger students would be:
• Think before you act or do.
• Make plans and work hard at achieving them
• Treat others the way you would want to be treated.
• Ask for help but also ask to help
• Learn as much as you can and for as long as you can
• Do good things and good things will happen to you
We have really enjoyed reading your comments so far, look forward to reading more.
Hogan’s Heroes,
Wollondilly Public School
May 30th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Hello Rappers,
This week we read in groups the interviews in My People, My Place and discussed them. The words family and respect are prominent features of the interviews. Our school rules safe, respectful and responsible are also very important rules for life.
We are very lucky, as many of us have our grandparents living in, or very close to Goulburn. We have a really happy relationship with our grandparents and many of them help us out when mum and dad are busy. They love hearing and seeing what we do and we love the times we spend with them. We enjoy hearing their stories and it gives us a better understanding of their lives and about our ancestors.
We asked our grandparents their opinions why our cultural background is so important and they all came up with very similar ideas. They all said that looking at all people in our community and understanding where they come from, makes us appreciate them all. We can learn a lot about others and be more understanding.
We all feel that we need to respect one another. Lauren’s mum said that if your respect yourself and others, they will respect you in return. Helping others (family and friends work colleagues and even strangers) makes you a better person.
Some other ideas for living a good life include, kindness, honesty, compassion, friendship, sportsmanship, humour, not being selfish and taking responsibility for your own decisions.
We read a great picture book by Mem Fox “Whoever you are” it explains to us that everyone has the same feelings of happiness, sadness and pain even though they come from different cultures. We need to be accepting of all people and appreciate their lives and the struggles that we all face. We recommend that everyone in the book rap have a read of it. It brings tears to our teacher’s eyes all the time. She said even though it is 10 years old, it is one of her favourite books of all time.
We look forward to reading everyone’s ideas.
5/6S @ Wollondilly Public School
May 30th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Good day everyone from Mount Hutton and Wollondilly
From Mt Hutton: Emily, Nathara, Jess, Lachlan, Travis, Jordan and Harrison – Thanks for sharing the ideas which you came up with in pairs and small groups. I really agree with your points and I try to respect the struggles that people have had, and to listen to stories so I can learn from other people too.
Hogan’s Heroes from Wollondilly: I love that idea you had of considering the advice which you would give to younger students – what a great approach! I really believe that if we all lived by the 6 important messages that you have come up with, the world would be a MUCH better place…
5/6S at Wollondilly: You are SO lucky to have your grandparents mostly living nearby! Thanks for the key essage you have given about living a good life: respect, understanding, kindness, honesty, sportsmanship – this is all really good stuff to live by. That book by Mem Fox, “Whoever you are” sounds wonderful and thanks for telling us all about it…
Cheers
Lizzie
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 am
Good day everyone
We have learned our students are from a variety of cultures. and that it is important to speak with our Elders to gain information about our values and traditions.
5/6S
Belmont Public School
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:02 am
Good day, Belmont Public School
It’s great to hear that you speak with your Elders to learn about your values and traditions!
Cheers
Lizzie
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:10 am
Good day everyone
Today we shared our cultural backgrounds with each other. We discussed and agreed that our culture is taught by our family. Even with our different backgrounds we all have similar values for a ‘good life’- family, friends, respect, freedom, love, education, health.
6M
Belmont PS
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:33 am
Good day 6M at Belmont PS
Great to hear from you! I agree that we do share similar values – you have named what really matters to many of us!
Cheers
Lizzie
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Our class, 5M, has a mixture of cultures that we have just discovered.
5M, Belmont Public School
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Hi 5M at Belmont PS
Could you let me know the cultures that your class is made up of? I would be interested to hear about everyone’s backgrounds…
Cheers
Lizzie
June 7th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
It is important to learn about our heritage and history so we can pass it down through generation to generations to come. It also helps us to learn about our identity. It tells us who we are, where we come from. It allows us to express our identity by sharing culture to others.
Aboriginal Studies students of Chifley College, Shalvey campus.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Hi everyone from Shalvey Campus
Thanks for sharing with us – I totally agree it is so important to pass culture on from generation to generation – hope you have had a chance to read the interviews with people from Mt Druitt such as Maureen Wenzel, and Josh and Steve from Miimali.
Cheers
Lizzie
June 9th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Our class ran out of time last week but we would love to share with you our different backgrounds. Some of us didn’t know our background last week but have asked at home and can now tell everyone.
We are Hungarian, Bulgarian, Italian, German, Scottish, English, American, Irish, Dutch, Macedonian, Welsh, Strait Islander, Aboriginal and Turkish.
5M,
Belmont Public School
June 9th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Good day 5M!
What a fantastic mix of backgrounds your class has! Thanks so much for giving us this information about your very multicultural group.
Thanks!
Lizzie
June 9th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Hi rappers,
4/5 M here. Mr McLean was at a conference last week, so we worked with Mrs Whitton. She has never done rapping or blogging before.
Why is our culture important?
“Our culture identifies our way of life, how we talk, food we eat, the way we live, work and play, our likes and dislikes. We need to know where our culture comes from so you can understand who we are and where we come from.”
Some messages for leading a good life:
“Our culture encourages us to be active and healthy, respectful of others, and our environment. To be a good friend and to help out others.”
From Year 5 students of 4/5 M @ Penrith PS
June 9th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Good day Penrith PS rappers in 4/5M – Love your work!
Thank you – you took the big picture approach and made a useful summary of these issues.
All the best!
Lizzie
June 16th, 2009 at 11:35 am
We feel that it is important to know your heritage so we can learn more about ourselves and our relatives. We need to know these things so we can also understand our identity, and know what is expected of us in our community.
Allan, Jayson and Hayden,
7D, Somerville Secondary College
June 17th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Good day Somerville 7D
Great to have you on board! Great to meet you, Allan, Jayson and Hayden…
Thanks for your ideas about your heritage and your identity – I hope this rap is providing a good opportunity for you to discuss building a strong identity and how you can contribute to your community. Being a leader means that you show the way forward – I hope that you are leading the way!!
Cheers
Lizzie