This lesson will generate student interest by asking children how they eat a meal. Try these questions to get started: What do you eat first? What do you save for last?
After some discussion, pass out pictures of a fruit salad. Alternatively, bring an actual large fruit salad—it makes a big impression and can be shared after the lesson. Explain that people approach things on their plates differently depending on what they like and don’t like, and help students to think about how personality impacts choices.
Ask the students how they would eat the salad. During the discussion, echo statements that help children respect the various approaches. Write comments on the board. Then show a second picture of a bowl of fruit with a large, wrinkled, brown unfamiliar food item in the middle. This can be a dried fig, or another fruit unfamiliar to most of the children in the class—but it is important that it not look particularly appetizing to everyone.
Ask the children how they would approach the fruit salad now. I find it more powerful to let the children’s remarks be heard by one another than to comment myself. Steer children toward understanding that it might not be fair to push the strange item away, but instead, to try it before deciding.
You might hear:
“I would not eat it because of that horrible fruit in the middle.”
“I wouldn’t eat it at all because the fig has touched it.”
To conclude the lesson, the fruit salad can be eaten—and the new fruit sampled. I ask the children how a community is like the salad bowl. With time, I invite children to share other dishes that could be used as a metaphor for the diverse populations of the United States.
Julie Alice Huson
San Rafael City Schools
San Rafael, Calif.
To go from salad bowl to community to family, visit www.tolerance.org/activity/shape-home.
A comprehensive list of curriculum standards aligned with each Activity Exchange can be found at
www.tolerance.org/activity-exchange-3/standards.
