Scott Nishimoto

Family Cultural Sharing

Identify cultural treasures from the families in your classroom. Have families come in and share their cultural traditions. Highlight ways of celebrating community through dance, art, music, and food. Crosswalk the experiences to highlight the sharing of humanity’s various cultures. Additionally, youth can find hybrid cultural forms of expression and food that show cultural collision, …

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Expository Writing Structures

Although narrative structures are more easily remembered and come more naturally to youth, ask them to try these expository writing structures: Compare & Contrast (discuss the similarities and differences between people, places, items, or events, without bias); Problem & Solution (define a clear problem with multiple solutions and choose the best solution and explain why); …

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Ethnomathematics

Defined by Brazilian mathematician Ubiratan D’Ambrosio as intersections of culture, historical traditions, socio-cultural roots, and mathematics.  It seeks to answer the question of students in math classes everywhere: What’s the relevance? Often the answers are experienced on location during field trips, by applying math to the world around us, and making it meaningful.  It is …

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Engaging Nature

Getting people outside can do wonders for building capacities for problem solving. Through engaging nature, youth become calm, learn to listen carefully, develop their empathic response, become more respectful and more careful about their own actions, and take on leadership positions to protect nature. They feel peace and learn about the practical steps of civic …

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Drama and Dance

Use drama and dance to build community, foster active learning, and support youth growth. Use both to aid classroom management, address multiple intelligences, and to develop abstract, creative and critical thinking skills. Assign various roles to youth in the “Theater Company” including: Playwright, Director, Choreographer, Actors and Actresses. Use dramatic play with young children to …

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Double Listening

Includes active listening plus listening for the counter story. A counter story is one that will introduce possibilities of resolution or that will help you to identify underlying needs. Involves listening beyond facts and more deeply for values important to the speaker. The listener should make note of the speaker’s posture, tone, volume, demeanor, and …

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