Karen ­ Grade Three

Karen’s school has approximately 580 students divided into 24 divisions ranging from Kindergarten to Grade Seven. The school is situated in the southeastern area of Vancouver, which is composed of various ethnic backgrounds, such as Canadian, East Indian, Pakistani, Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Cambodian, Sri Lankan, Filipino, and Vietnamese etc. Approximately 80% of the students at the school are English as a Second Language learners (E.S.L.) Karen’s Grade Three class consisted of twenty-three students, six boys and seventeen girls (eight and nine years of age). All of the students, except for three, are E.S.L.

Similar lessons were conducted as in Mary’s kindergarten class. I began the lessons by asking the students what they thought a role model was. We had an in depth discussion about the definition the four teacher researchers devised, so all students were very familiar with the concept of a role model. I gave the students examples of characteristics from the story, Little Red Riding Hood. I put the students into small groups and had them create a list of characteristics that role models might have. To reinforce the role model concept, I used the book “Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot” by Margot Theis Raven. This book was chosen to illustrate to the students the pilot’s positive attributes. Another lesson used non-fiction books that depicted community workers, sports figures, musicians, religious figures, and entertainers to further develop the idea of role models. In the final lesson, the students chose their individual role models. I made the students promise not to share their choice with other students because I did not want all the girls to influence one another when choosing their role models. Each student completed an activity sheet, then I met with the small groups to discuss and record follow-up questions about the process of choosing role models.

After conducting the research in the Grade Three 3 class, the work of three boys and three girls was selected randomly in order to analyze it in depth.

All three of the boys chose role models who are in the entertainment business. One of the boys, Thinesan, chose Spiderman as his role model. He chose this character because he is brave, friendly, a happy person, smart, cool and because he saves kids and fights bad guys. Another boy named Mandeep chose a singer named DMX as his role model. The characteristics DMX has that are important to Mandeep are genius, smart, a good person, helpful, responsible, kind, and never greedy. The last boy, Nathan decided to pick a female role model. Nathan said, “I chose a female because I want to explore different things and try things I don’t know about”. He believes Wonder Woman has characteristics that he wants to have such as she cares for people, is honest, cheerful, tough, serious, strong, knowledgeable, helpful, and responsible.

One girl picked an entertainer and the two others chose family members. The first girl chose Lizzie McGuire who is a television character played by Hilary Duff. Harjinder wrote that Lizzie McGuire is her role model because she is kind, nice, pretty, happy, not mean to people, smart, helpful, and not greedy. The second girl, Jasdeep, selected her mom as her role model because her mom is very fair, not greedy, responsible, nice, kind, smart, friendly, and a hard worker. The last female, Ginger, chose her big sister because she is pretty, smart, has a nice voice, knowledgeable, helpful, giving, caring, honest, and hilarious.