Starting From Home (La Religion)

This was one of the dopest lessons I have done in a while. I am thankful that I recorded, but kicking myself because I only recorded my browser tab (which we didn't really use) along with the audio, as opposed to the actual camera. So you'll have to just listen to the discussion (sorry!).

We are embarking on a unit about religions in the afrofrancophonie. We will eventually explore le vodoun in Bénin and Haïti, and le mouridisme in Sénégal.

But here in this video, you can hear us start by creating our own working definition of "religion." We then go on to discuss the different religions that are represented in our school community. I gave them some more language around the names of religions, the names of people who practice certain religions and those who do not subscribe to religious belief, the different houses of worship, etc.

The entire conversation happened so organically, all within comprehensible language, and I'm super proud of that.

This is what many might consider a "difficult conversation," but I really feel that here we were able to execute it in a way that avoided so many of the potential problems. No one had to discuss their own personal beliefs, students were able to contribute their background knowledge without any judgment. It was a factual discussion about different belief systems that we are aware of in our community.

I made a few mistakes, as I listen back to the recording, but I'm still super happy with it. The students of this class are going to survey our community anonymously to be able to get some percentages of different common belief systems represented here, to later compare to those in the AfroFranco places we'll study.

Anyway, I hope this helps/inspires someone!