Child Labor:
A Part of Industrialization
Unit Topic and Strategy Background
4th Grade: Economic Opportunity and Inequality—Industrialization Today and at the Turn of the Century
1. Factors and People Behind Industrialization
2. Pros/Cons of Industrialization
3. The Labor Movement Then and Now
4. Child Labor Then and Now
5. Industrialization in Champaign-Urbana and Illinois
6. Industry in America Today
7. Labor Day/May Day
8. Mapping the Growth of Industrial America and Industry in Champaign-Urbana Today
Background information and perspectives on unit topic from teachers, school, students, community
1. School: observing 4th grade social studies:
· Currently studying states/regions of US, after finishing government; Spring will be about IL history
· Do not cover Industrial Revolution; topics are factual/geography (mountains
· Reading from textbook about landforms; doing worksheet, review questions in book, and using vocabulary from text in own words
2. Interview with 5th grade teacher:
· The textbook includes a chapter entitled “Inventions Shape Inventory,” but they have not gotten to it during the year
· Believes that without using a simulation to tie in supply and demand, substitutes for things, etc, that “industrialization and economy” mean nothing to students
· Role play helps understanding concepts- not just reading the book
· Students conceptually good at people, time, places
· Problem in her classroom is that the current curriculum is so structured there is not time for her to do simulations that take three months because must follow new timeline
3. Interview with another 5th grade teacher:
· Use natural resources and how it influences economics in that region
· Did not use Labor Day for instruction because had not started social studies instruction yet
· Their instruction includes looking up vocabulary, reading chapter (sometimes listening to it on tape), and a content quiz or assessment that follows district curriculum
4. Interview with 5th grade student:
· Wants to learn about steel mills, factories, railroads, canals…little later the airplane, zephers, DC3, subway, EL
· Wants to know how they were built, where, interior, exterior, who invented
· Wants to know if there was government funding, if made with money from the past or government
· It would be good to know where what we have today came from
Background Information in Concept map
Instructional Strategies (Integrating Socially)
We found the following instructional strategies from Integrating Socially. Many of these strategies have been used in our own Curriculum and Instruction class for Social Studies instruction, and we have benefited greatly from them. By using interviews and surveys students think critically to develop questions to ask a speaker or other person about the topic being studied. The development of questions causes students to discover what they want to know, and the actual interview helps them learn from others’ experiences or expertise on the topic as they communicate with them. It also helps them learn to gather their own information in studying a topic. Conversation counters are used in class discussions by giving each student three different colored blocks. Each student places a block in the middle of the class circle when they have contributed to the conversation and a second color cannot be started until all students have used the first color. This promotes equitable sharing. Learning logs individualize a focus questions for reflective writing, giving students time to personally write about what they are learning, expressing questions if they desire. Effects wheels use bubbles to show how each consequence of familiar topic leads to another. This helps students pinpoint causes and effects of issues. Concept maps help students organize prior knowledge about topic and make connections between associated concepts. Putting you in the picture is a strategy that connects students’ own lives to the topic by the use of a drawn picture frame in which students write or draw where they fit into the topic. Expert groups are small groups who begin by becoming experts on part of topic. Next, the groups switch so that each new group has one member from each expert group. They each share with the others from the various other groups. Possible sentences is a strategy in which students use the title of text to predict key words, form sentences from these key words, then read text, and finally discuss if their predictions matched the text. Concept attainment is an opening strategy in which the class makes a yes/no list in which the class chooses the column that the examples should be placed in until they guess the unit topic. A Photograph Review provides students with a picture, which is said to be worth 1000 words, as their entry point into another world. Students can then begin to empathize with the historical situation as they glance the subject's emotions. We encountered this strategy while reading the book, Doing History. Finally, grouping strategies is used to develop different groups for different situations like friendship, random, needs/interest-based, and multi-age/multi ability groups.
Instructional Strategy: Expert Groups
The instructional strategy expert groups that was previously mentioned uses small groups. I have experienced this strategy as a student and benefited greatly from it. Sometimes small group work that consists of groups of approximately five students can be beneficial for only one or two members of that group. For example, when students know that an assignment given will be assessed by group work, often students neglect to participate as they rely on the other students. One or two students become the leaders and do most of the work. Therefore, only a few students are truly benefiting from the group activity. In contrast, expert groups require each student to engage in the material as they will be the only expert representing their group in the new group. The use of the initial expert groups who will change groups to share their information gives students a need to actively participate and engage with the information. In addition, as each expert shares with the others from the various other groups, each student has gained prior knowledge about the general topic. This makes the new information more meaningful to each student listening. Furthermore, the students often learn well from one another as they communicate on the same level. Great research skills are developed as students work together to gather information and organize it to be ready to present to others. They learn to collaborate as a group and communicate a new idea to people who do not already know about it. This teaching strategy not only supports engaging students in the topic at hand, but is also provides student with opportunities to grow as communicators and researchers.
Literacy Strategy: Learning Logs
Understanding the sacred connection between Social Studies and literacy, we decided to integrate literacy activities into each lesson within our unit. We have designed a Learning Log for each student. This Learning Log will guide students on their own inquiry experience. Not only will this provide them an opportunity to reinforce the social knowledge they have gained from the day by writing it down, but it will also allow them to practice their literacy skills. By responding to open-ended questions which require an explanation of why, students will adopt this way of thinking and expressing their thoughts. In addition by using this opportunity to practice their writing skills, students will improve their grammar and vocabulary. Most importantly, one of our most prominent goals as educators is to nurture reflective minds. Through this interdisciplinary activity, we involve children in the reflection process.
I encountered this idea in my CI 499 course, Bilingual Education Methods, last spring. We filled these simple sheets out after each class. I found that by doing so, not only did I retain more knowledge, but I also had the opportunity to use the new vocabulary I had acquired in my writing. My professor also explained that by using these Learning Logs with English Language Learners, they would allow the students to learn words that related to their content knowledge. During this past summer I also had the chance to observe fifth grade English Language Learners use Learning Logs to retain their scientific knowledge and concomitantly expand their vocabularies.
Resource Review
General Resource Review
- http://www.carolhurst.com/subjects/time.html
This website includes resources for students about history, and includes activities like making a timeline from children’s books.
- Judith St. George and David Small, So You Want to be an Inventor?, Puffin Books.Ny 2002
This book includes many inventors and what they invented, encourages students to become inventors too, has biographical notes in the back, and a bibliography. It discusses how inventions change the world, break barriers, have risks, and lead to more inventions.
- The Kingfisher A-Z Encyclopedia,NY 2002.
This book includes information about beginning of industrialization in the 1700s in Europe through the present through machines, steam engines, mining, metalworking, railroads, movement toward cities, and less farming. It talks about inventions including the wheel, plow, pottery, printing press, telescope, camera, telephone, radio, aircraft, television, and silicon chip.
- The Usborne Internet-linked Children’s Encyclopedia, Usbourne Publishing, London, 2002.
This resource includes inventions in the modern world, and the changes in the world since end of World War II.
- The Concise History Encyclopedia, Kingfisher Publications. NY, 2001.
This resource talks of the Industrial Revolution from 1836-1913, the Business Boom, key dates, how “The rapid growth of industry of opportunities for employers and workers also brought exploitation and injustice” (224), children working, and woman working.
- Scholastic Children’s Encyclopedia, Scholastic Inc, 2004. NY.
This book includes information about labor, the development of unions, paid work, and how it is today. It also reports about the industrial revolution, including capitalism, resource conservation, new power, technology and its effects, economy, inventors and inventions.
- http://www.hrw.org/children/labor/elsalvador/
This website invites people to take action against child labor by sending a letter to the Coca Cola Corporation asking them to abolish their child labor in El Salvador.
- http://childlabor.social.uiuc.edu/
This website is a part of the University of Illinois School of Social Work. This is where we were able to find our guest speaker, an expert in the emotional effects of child labor.
- Bigelow, Bill and Bob Peterson. Rethinking Globalization Teaching For Justice In An Unjust World. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Rethinking Schools, Ltd, 2002.
This incredible resource opens ones eyes to the endless possibilities of exposing children to the injustices in society which they condone ignorantly and invites them to take a closer peek, leading to taking action to ameliorate these injustices.
- Freedman, Russell. Kids At Work. New York, NY: Clarion Books, 1994.
This poignant compilation of Lewis Hine’s photographs along with the informative and inspiring words uses pathos to cause all readers to empathize with the children in the picture.
- Springer, Jane. Listen to us The Worlds Working Children. Toronto, Ontario: Groundwood Books/ Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1997.
This remarkable resource for children presents a plethora of information in an accessible manner. It sends a strong, clear message about te travesties of child labor but is not too graphic for children to read.
Unit Resource Review (Still deciding)
- Bigelow, Bill and Bob Peterson, Ed. Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in and Unjust World. Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools Press, 2002. (p.191)
We used this book as a resource for ideas and activities for almost every single lesson! What an amazing tool!
- Freedman, Russell. Kids At Work. New York, NY: Clarion Books, 1994
We will be using various photographs from the book in a two different lessons. In addition, we will be using the Declaration of Dependence, found inside.
- Springer, Jane. Listen to us The Worlds Working Children. Toronto, Ontario: Groundwood Books/ Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1997.
We will use this book not only for statistics and stories to share with the children, but they will also each have copies of various parts of it to read for writing prompts. They will also use this book as their first resource for their research.
Unit Overview and Outline
Overview/Rationale—Introduction to Teachers
In 4th grade children begin to notice their individual strengths and weaknesses as their personal goals and dreams become more prominent aspects of their daily lives. Thus, at this point in their development, they can empathize with the struggle child laborers must face by sacrificing their dreams to get by day to day. In addition, in 4th grade students begin to get more and more homework and complain about their exhausting workload. When juxtaposing their everyday complaints with the severe suffering of child workers, they discern the essentialness of abolishing child labor.
In addition, in 4th grade children will already have a strong foundation of the early history of America and the state of Illinois. Thus, this unit will build upon their prior knowledge. More specifically, this unit about economic opportunity or lack there of will connect with their 2nd grade Social Studies unit about Freedom and their 3rd grade unit on Expansion. Thus, students will glimpse the interwoven nature of their Social Studies knowledge and begin to pull knowledge from their earlier units.
In 4th grade students will also feel comfortable expressing themselves. They will have seen the results of their efforts and understand their powerful voice, not only in the classroom but also in the community and the world. Thus, this unit will build upon this feeling of empowerment and provide students an opportunity to apply their knowledge to taking action. At this age, students will have all of the skills necessary to take action. Their writing skills will be developed well enough to express their thoughts in a cohesive and effective manner.
In addition, this interdisciplinary unit epitomizes all of the Teaching for Social Justice- Working Principles, from being “grounded in the lives of our students” to being “culturally and linguistically sensitive”. This unit also includes the five Key Perspectives: Making Choices and Taking Action, Imagining and Constructing the Future, The Global Society, and Individual Potential. Thus, not only does it engage students in an appropriate, individualized manner for their specific talents and attributes, but it also allows them to learn about a topic which still needs a great deal of public attention in order to abolish it. As students learn about the incredible achievements of a few heroes, they will be inspired to emulate their strength, charisma, and dream. This unit not only has the potential to engage students in learning, but also to get them hooked upon an endless quest toward the abolishment of child labor.