Teaching International Relations Program

Dear Daisy,

Thank you for participating in TIRP outreach! This folder is for your four session reports. This is a public forum and we encourage your professors and teachers to review your journal entries for feedback. Make sure your report of classroom activity is appropriate for public viewing.

Remember:
1. Each entry must be submitted within a week or before the next session, whichever comes first.
2. Entries need to be at least 500 words. It is your responsibility to save a copy of your report.
3. Your reports should focus on the content of the TIRP session. Spend no more than one paragraph discussing logistics. Include the key IR concepts and specific student responses.
4. Select "Post Reply" not "New Topic" when submitting each entry. This will ensure that all your
reports are posted in a way that will be easy for CALIS staff, professors and teachers to read.


A CALIS staff member will review your entry each week and leave a posted message approving it toward your extra credit. Thank you for your participation in TIRP!
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Report 1 - NOT SUBMITTED as of 11-06-09 - Kate
Daisy, Please submit your report as soon as possible. You will be marked late but will still receive credit.

Report 1 - LATE/CONTENT APPROVED - 11-16-09 - Kate

Report 2 - APPROVED - 11-16-09 - Kate
Just a suggestion: instead of having a team member read the cases, I would suggest getting the students involved and either taking turns reading or reading in groups. Glad the sessions have gone well.

Report 3 - APPROVED - 11-20-09 - Kate
I hope your last session goes well!

Report 4 - APPROVED - 11-30-09 - Kate
We would love to have you participate in TIRP in the future! Thanks for all your work!

In our first day with Ms. Hernandez’s sophomore class, Katherine, Caitlin, and I planned to introduce globalization at a simple level. We began the class by asking the students what they thought globalization meant. Not many hands shot up. When we gave them hints like, countries, interaction, etc a few of the students said things like trade and business. It seemed that the students had an idea of what they wanted to say but didn’t exactly know how to say it. Also, we noticed there was a lack of vocabulary and comprehension amongst the students so we noted to ourselves to try to be as simple and as clear in our explanations as possible. Next, after explaining globalization at a definition level, we wanted to bring the definition to life and apply it to the student’s lives. Our goals in the class were not only to teach these kids abstract concepts, but to apply it to their specific lives where they can make connections and understand the concepts at a more in depth level. Thus, we asked the kids to look at the tags of their shirts, pants, sneakers, etc to see where their item of clothing was made. We asked several of the students to participate and share their findings. Many of them were eager to share. At the end of the exercise, we explained that their clothing, made in Taiwan, China, US, etc, all represents a larger global market and interacting countries.

We followed this introduction with our first activity Seymour Someday. We divided the class into 6 groups, representing 6 continents. We wanted to do an interactive activity for our first day to not only break the ice a little bit with the kids but also to have them all thinking together and encouraging each other to participate. Also, I believe when games are added to the lesson, the content is often remembered more vividly in the future. Instead of reading Seymour’s “Day” ourselves, we asked for two “brave volunteers” who would come to the front and take turns reading. We had 2 eager volunteers who did a great job reading the paragraph with enthusiasm. The activity was definitely a hit amongst the kids. They were eager to shout out the countries and toss the yarn across the room. At the end, we had an entangled web criss- crossing the entire classroom. We asked the kids to look around as conceptualize what this game represented. One student suggested that it meant that, “all countries interact with each other and buy and sell each other’s products.” Another student mentioned, “Every day you use different products from different countries.” Also, many of the students were amazed about how many strings Asia (China) was holding and its connectedness with the U.S.

With a few minutes to spare, we asked the kids to now apply the new knowledge of globalization to their own personal lives. Many of the students chose to talk about food that their families eat here in the U.S that is made in Mexico. Also, one student mentioned electronics he owns that are mainly from Japan.

At the end of the period, the kids were definitely sad to see us go. We definitely felt that the kids had a stronger grasp on the concepts of globalization, world market, and interactions. In the following lessons we plan to build on this basic understanding and go more in-depth in exploring globalization.

On the second day of our session, we moved away from an activity based lesson plan and more towards a lecture/discussion. We started the class with the “four worlds” activity sheet. We chose the Big Mac as our “product” because the kids, being high schoolers, love talking about McDonalds. We introduced the concept of the “four worlds” and explained each of the worlds with examples. We handed out blank sheets so as we spoke, the kids could take notes. After explaining the major concept behind each of the “worlds” with examples, we gave the class 10 minutes to discuss amongst themselves and brainstorm ideas for the Big Mac product. As they talked we walked around and helped kids individually to make sure everyone was on task. It was a little hard for some of them to focus, but many of them understood the concept and were filling out their charts accordingly. We were very impressed that many of them were filling out the chart and helping their neighbors without even asking for our help. After the 10 minutes of individual as well as group help, we came back to the front and asked for volunteers. We went through each of the four worlds and had almost everyone in the class participate. One girl, for instance, explained how McDonalds is important in the “economical” world in that there is a McDonalds in almost every country, and she also recognized how big of an advertisement and marketing campaign McDonalds has. Someone else mentioned about the “social” world and hummed the McDonalds theme song from its commercials. Overall, this was a great exercise and we noticed that we definitely want to have time where the kids can work by themselves and their neighbors, as well as go around helping them individually. We found that with this extra time, the kids participated more and were more confident in their answers.

After the four worlds activity, we proceeded to our case study which was Petroleum and Power in Latin America. Caitlin read out loud the case study. After the report, we had several questions that we asked the kids to participate in a discussion format. We linked the case study to our first lesson and asked what this article and our first lesson had in common. Many kids had the idea but there was only one student who came up with the word, globalization. Another student talked about how the corporation in the case study was a multi-national corporation. Many of the students were participating and their answers have become longer and more in depth compared to the first day. Also, more students are participating feeling, hopefully, more confident in their knowledge on globalization. For instance, one girl who sat in the back and had never spoken before gave a detailed explanation about how the indigenous man in the article came to America, which is unusual for indigenous people to travel away from their home town. Then, he spoke to a multinational corporation about a problem that affects both him and people abroad in other countries. Her contribution to the class showed her grasp on the concept of globalization and the reading itself. We were very impressed.

Unfortunately, Katherine, Caitlin and I were unable to do our third session due to Veteran’s Day and Manuel Arts High School had the day off. Since we were not able to teach the lesson, I will just explain our intended lesson plan we had for that day.


For our third lesson, we had planned to do something more interactive and game based since the last lesson was more lecture based. Thus, we chose to do the Human Rights Squares Activity. Talking about human rights coincides nicely with globalization and will give the kids some important things to consider in the realm of globalization as well as their own lives.
We would have began the lesson defining some key term, or perhaps asking for volunteers to define terms such as: human rights, civil/political rights, United Nations, etc. Based on the other 2 lessons, I believe the kids would have been able to define the majority of the terms since they have been a part of our past lessons. Next, we would have passed out the human rights squares and allowed them to work amongst themselves for a few minutes to generate answers. Then, we would come back and perhaps go over some together and finally ask for each student to volunteer one square that they came up with. Since the class is very vocal and love to participate, whether they raise their hand or not, they would have enjoyed this activity and sharing their answers.


After the Human Rights Squares Activity, we would engage in a discussion about the repercussions that globalization and free trade have on human rights. We would discuss how employers often exploit workers because of the high demand to mass produce goods; however, many times it is at the cost of their employee’s safety. Hopefully the debate forms two sides of those who are in favor of globalization and those who are against it. Our class, being very opinionated, would have had no problem defending their points of views on the issue.
After the debate, if there was time, we would do the Case Study of NAFTA to reinforce the debate we just had. The NAFTA Case Study would bring about the idea of the economic advantages of NAFA (low prices and a more efficient economy) versus the cost it has on the lives of these employees and people. We would focus on the United States of America, Canada, and Mexico to implement these points. Moreover, we would discuss the relationship between Mexico and the United States. Perhaps, ask the kids what they thought about our trade relations with Mexico. Whether they are good or bad and why. We would explain how the U.S outsources and uses many workers and manufacturing plants in Mexico due to the cheap labor and production. However, this poses problems of human rights for the Mexican workers who are in turn, suffering from these American companies.


Hopefully these issues would bring about discussion and a heated debate. We encourage the students to say what they believe and to defend their points which as the lessons go on, they have seemed to become better at.

Wednesday was our last TIRP session with Ms. Hernandez’s 10th grade class. Due to no class because of Veteran’s Day the Wednesday before, the class was certainly glad to see us again. For our last session, we wanted to end with an activity that would sum up all the concepts we had covered as well as end with a game. We decided to do Mr. Goodbar. Before hand, we organized peanuts, chocolates, and money into plastic bags that each student would receive in order to trade with one another.
We began the class by summing up concepts from the past two sessions such as what is globalization in their own words, human rights, international trade, and concepts from the four worlds. The students were finally able to define these concepts in their own words in a concise manner.
Next, the students had seen us bring in the chocolate and were anxious to start the game. We explained that each of them would be distinct manufacturers, companies, etc and would have to interact with each other in order to make a candy bar out of the materials they have: peanuts and chocolate kisses. We then asked about strategies that they could possibly employ in this game. One student added that they didn’t want to just give away their resources to everyone; they wanted to be prudent in their trading because they had to think of their own company’s interests. This was a key contribution because if we didn’t distinguish this, I feel like the class would have just gone up to their friends and say give me all your chocolate. However, once the game started we saw deals being made and little business men and women being born.
We continued the game for 5 minutes for the first round and 10 minutes for a second round. For the second round we told the students that there had been a drought and had to give up some of their peanuts. Many of them were reluctant to give up their resources and nervous about how they would be able to make the same candy bar with fewer materials.
At the end of the rounds we came together as a class to eat the left over peanuts and candy and talk about what this activity meant in the broader scheme of globalization. Many of the students caught on to the idea. One student said that the different bags represented materials that different manufacturers have; however, not everyone had all the resources (peanuts and chocolate) thus they had to be in contact with other companies that did in fact have the resources they needed. Also, they noted that when there was a drought, people were less likely to trade at the same rate as they did first round, thus, creating inflated prices for the same products.
Overall, the lesson went very well and the class enjoyed the activity very much. I believe the activity solidified the information for the kids and I hope to do TIRP again in the following semesters.