What makes up a Society?
Have your class or trail group separate themselves into two groups, which will be their societies. I start by having the groups first choose a name for their society and a greeting. I have the two groups tell each other their groups’ names and greet each other in the way their group has chosen to meet each other.
After the groups introduce themselves, have a discussion about some of the things that make our society unique. It is OK to lead your students in this discussion. For example, often the children will come up with the sports that we play are different, and you could ask them, “is the way that we treat sports heroes differently, is the way that we treat women's sports and men sports different than in other societies?” This conversation is to help your students understand some of the things in their world that we are socialized to do.
Building Your Society:
Aesthetically Pleasing: Once you are comfortable with your students’ understanding of socialized response, you can move on to the next phase of the activity. I ask the group to choose one thing as an aesthetically pleasing value and decide how they react to it. When someone says something we like, we smile. One of the aesthetics should be something that humans do: winking, a word, a gesture; the other should be something outside of human control: the wind, leaves falling, or a bird flying over head, for example.
Social Taboos: The second part should be something that your group should find taboo, and how your society would respond to it. An example in our society is that sneezing is taboo, and saying “God bless you” is our response to it.
Holidays: They should chose one part of the day to celebrate their major
holiday. A holiday they make up and celebrate with the whole group.
The two groups should not tell each other what is pleasing or what is taboo
to them. They should spend one day acting as members of their society.
ENDING THE ACTIVITY: At the end of the day the groups would discuss how they would function if their two great societies were forced to live together. What parts of the society would make it pleasant to live together and what aspects of their societies could make it difficult to live together.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ACTIVITY: The importance of the activity is to help students understand that sometimes we can react to a person’s differences without even thinking. Every society deals with things a little differently than every other society and what makes us different does not make us bad or wrong. I hope this activity will make students think about our differences and what they can do to help us in understanding each other.