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Lesson 1 -
Appreciating Diversity
Vocabulary
Crafts: Items made by hand with skill and artistry. Such items may
be useful to help in daily living, be made for decoration or have religious meaning.
Culture: The customary beliefs, manners, art, music,
food, language and the items commonly used by a particular group can all contribute
to defining a culture.
Cultural Symbol: An expression, image, or even
clothing that helps us to recall the meaning of the customs or way of life
of a particular group.
Customs: Usage or practice common to a large or small number
of members of a group or to people in a particular place.
Empathy: Capacity of
someone to understand and accept the feelings, ideas or way of life of others.
Diversity: The condition of being different or having differences. In
relation to people, the condition of those who are different from each other
because of origins or history.
Huipil: The upper garment worn by Maya women of Guatemala,
of various sizes and shapes but often hand woven on the backstrap loom and made
with distinctive traditional patterns.
Human Rights: Relating to privileges that
should be common to everyone including the right to live in peace, receive education,
have access to clean water and receive respect from others.
Indigenous: Pertaining
to the original inhabitants of a particular area.
Multicultural: Pertaining
to many cultures.
Materials
A copy of the Coloring Book for reference in presenting lesson material.
It is best if each child can have one or two copies of coloring book pages showing Maya wearing traditional
dress. Recommended pages include 1, 7, 9, 11 and 12.
Pictures of the Maya to help facilitate classroom discussion. Make
larger copies (11"x17") of several coloring book drawings such as of a young
Maya women wearing a huipil (upper garment) with other traditional clothing (page
9) and a boy and his father (page 21) wearing palm hats and their
traditional dress. Additional images such as photos in books depicting Maya in
traditional dress can also be used.
Maya clothing. If possible, provide at least one each of the following:
- a handwoven Maya
huipil for children to try on, and for contrast, a tee shirt with a printed design
- a hand made Guatemalan
palm fiber hat (a similar hat from another country will do) for children to try
on, and for comparison, a cloth baseball cap. (See Resources for information
about a Teacher’s Kit to accompany this lesson)
Activities
1 - Looking,Writing & Sharing Ideas: About
the Maya’s Environment and Clothing
This exercise is based on each child having about two drawings from the
Coloring Book, but is easily adapted if they have the whole book.
- Encourage students to observe the Mayas’ surroundings (homes, fields,
etc.) in their coloring book drawings.
- Ask them to give the page number and respond if they have any of the following
in their drawings:
- houses
- tile roofs
- fields of corn
- mountains
- streets with cobble stone paving
- a girl watching sheep
- artisans who seem to be working at home
- children and grandchildren looking on or doing work themselves
- one motorized vehicle i.e. the back of a bus
- children playing with tops
- a person carrying a load on his back
- a public market shows people buying and selling
- Using each item or activity in the above list, ask children
what they tell us about the environment of the Maya and how they live. Try
to elicit answers that are the result of students’ analysis,
for example: the corn fields by houses tell us the Maya grow a lot of corn
and live in the country side. Compare the circumstances of the Maya to how we
live, work and play.
- Ask children
to look at their coloring book drawings and then find and write down the names
of the different traditional clothing, bags, nets, etc that they see. For example,
on page 21 each of these items are shown.
Here is the list of crafts in the coloring book related to different traditional
clothing, bags, nets and other hand made items:
- women and girls’ traditional garments — huipils, skirts, and hair
ribbons
- handwoven blanket
- sandals
- men and boys' traditional shirts, pants and hats
- bags and nets to carry food and other things
- friendship bracelets
- Ask children to give the page numbers of the drawings where artisans
are doing work related to weaving or making another kind of textile. (Hint: the
first twelve drawings all show some aspect of spinning or textile construction
along with page 29,“Making friendship bracelets of cotton yarns” and
page 30,“Making maguey decorations.”)
2 - Making Drawings: How and Why the Maya Choose to Wear Traditional
Clothes
Ask children to use crayons (not felt pens) to draw themselves in their favorite
indoor clothing, such as they would wear to school, including shoes. After they
have competed the drawings, ask them to
- compare their clothing to that of the Maya as seen in the coloring book.
How is it similar? How is it different?
- discuss what are characteristics of the Maya styles
of clothing and sandals to make them look different from ours?
Encourage children
to think why they think the Maya wear the styles of clothing seen in the
coloring book drawings. Talk about how by keeping this tradition, they gain a
sense of belonging and show pride in their culture (see Background).
Ask students to name other countries
where people wear their own traditional clothing. If they come to Canada or the
USA as immigrants, do they continue to wear it or sometimes stop?
Encourage students to give
their ideas about why immigrants might decide to wear the clothing more typical
of their new home instead of their traditional clothing.
Ask students if they
know anyone who wears traditional clothing. If the answer is yes, perhaps, they
can respectfully ask that person about their feelings about wearing it.
Try
to think of more possible issues about the clothing of the Maya people, that
of our own and of other countries.
3 - Wearing and
Comparing: Maya Traditional Clothing and Our Own Styles of Clothing
The following Activities use a patterned hand woven Maya huipil, a
factory made tee shirt with a printed design, a hand made Maya palm hat and
a factory made baseball cap.
Wear and compare a handwoven Maya huipil with a
tee shirt.
(This exercise becomes still more effective if several huipils
are available)
- Have Maya huipiles and tee shirts for children
to try on and a mirror for looking at themselves. Let children wearing them
stand together — then ask class members, including the wearers, to compare
how they feel about the two garments. Mention that in Guatemala, it is customary
for only women and girls to wear huipils. Encourage discussion. (Those wearing
the Maya clothing may feel embarrassment but that can be a learning point.)
- Ask students to think about and imagine being a Maya in Guatemala. Some
things to consider are:
- What it would be like to wear a woman’s huipil or
(man’s traditional clothing) daily?
Why do they think the Maya place so much importance on wearing it?
- If Maya immigrants come to the USA or Canada, they can decide to wear or
not to wear their traditional clothing here. Ask children to imagine that they
are an immigrant who must make such a decision. What would they decide?
- Is it possible to admire a huipil and still not want to wear it?
- What kind of clothing or footwear do people in Canada and the USA want to
wear? Why?
- If we wear similar clothing, such as tee shirts with the same design,
along with many others, does it give a sense belonging to a community
or part of a group? Why or why not?
- How is this similar or different from wearing Maya traditional clothing
- Sometimes we cannot choose what we wear. Some Maya women
in Guatemala do not have enough money to buy or to weave their huipils. Instead,
they only have enough money to buy factory made clothing and they express sadness
about that.
- Ask children to put themselves in the place of such women and give their
ideas about why the women would feel sad
- Ask them to consider how they themselves feel if
they are not able to buy the clothes they need and want to wear
- Is this related to how a Maya woman unable to afford traditional
clothing feels? How is it different?
Wear and compare a palm hat with a baseball
cap
(Have at least one Maya palm hat and a baseball cap available)
In the same
way as above, allow children to try on the hats and look at themselves in a
mirror. Let children to stand together — ask class members, including
the wearers, to compare how they feel about the two kinds of head coverings.
Mention that in Guatemala, it is customary for only men to wear hats and caps.
Some Questions and Answers About Palm Hats:
- How does the palm hat differ from the baseball cap? Answer:
The hat has a brim all the way around and the cap has a visor over the eyes.
- How do their materials differ? Answer: The palm hat is made of natural
palm which grows on a tree and the cap is made of either cotton or a man made
acrylic synthetic. Ask students to think about and discuss these differences
further —
- Why is palm is a good material to use to make
hats in Guatemala? Answer: A hat made of palm is cool and comfortable to wear
in a warm climate, the palm is locally grown and easily obtainable.
- Which gives more shade from the sun - the hat or the cap? Answer: the
hat. Would
that be a good reason for many men in Guatemala to wear palm hats?
- Why do Maya men and boys would want
to wear palm hats. Answer: In their communities, it is customary for men to
wear hats.
- Why do some
Maya men and boys want to wear a baseball hat. Answer: The factory made
baseball cap costs much less than a handmade palm hat and they might like to
wear a newer style rather than the traditional hat.
- What are some reasons
that the baseball cap is more commonly worn in the USA or Canada? Answer:
It is inexpensive, customary, and at least in in the Northern regions, the weather
is less sunny.
- Are there more issues
about wearing hats or caps? For example, is there more than one way of wearing
a baseball cap?
Assessment
Students should have gained understanding about
- why Maya people want to wear their traditional clothing
- new ways of thinking
about our own ways of wearing clothing
- the importance of showing respect to others who not
only dress differently than we do but speak other languages or eat other kinds
of foods
- extending this lesson to other situations
Lesson 1 Resources
A Teacher’s Kit from Terra
Experience, a Fair Trade Federation member, includes a huipil and a palm
hat to accompany this lesson. See Teachers
Resources at www.terraexperience.com.
Books
Children of the World: Guatemala by Ronnie Cummins and Rose
Welch and more books about the Maya are available
from Terra Experience at www.terraexperience.com
Web sites
K’inal Winik Cultural Center Teacher Resources (also check out their
Maya studies curriculum)
www.csuohio.edu/kinalwinik/resources/teachers/teachers.htm
Sites with photos of Maya traditional
clothing:
The Guatemalan Indian Centre: www.maya.org.uk
Guatemalan Maya Weaving (TRAJE EN GUATEMALA): www.rutahsa.com/traje.html
Further information on related books & websites
can be found on the Resources page
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