Hello, Teachers! Welcome to this week's post, a post on teaching about the world's first advanced city civilization, the Indus Valley Civilization.
You may be wondering how you will be able to teach about an ancient city-based civilization that students may not have an adequate imagination of. You may be wondering how you could make them relate their modern day city life, or at least their knowledge of it, with the city life of more than 5000 years ago.
Don't fret. Here are the following things you need to keep in mind:
· Subjective experiences:- Students want to be known for what experiences they have had with their world and its people and objects. Connecting their experiences is important to teaching historical experiences of humanity.
· Observation:- For most students, there are new things to see everyday and to learn from. Even in the case of the mundane, their very frequency or abundance can make students see them as important to their lives. Novel or mundane, students' observations of their society need to be critically examined and appreciated when they learn a subject.
· Reflection:- Students tend to think about what is wrong and what is right as well as what is and what should be in their social and personal lives. Reflections like these open many avenues to teachers for helping them take decisions on what solutions to implement to solve the problems they see and feel affected by.
· Inquiry:- Many students in 6th Grade feel content with believing only what the teacher says in class to learn about the past and hesitate to ask questions out of fear of being ridiculed or criticized. At the same time, they may ask certain questions that are outside of the box. As such, the teacher has to encourage them to learn by creating a nonjudgmental class environment and vibe so that they can freely ask their questions on the subject being taught.
As such, here is a day-wise strategy to teach the topic:
Guidelines- Day 1:
1. Start the lesson by asking students the following questions and listening to their answers to them:
o What is a city?
o How is life like in a city?
o What are the features of a city that make it different from, say a village?
2. Take them on a short field trip to one residential neighborhood and then, one commercial neighborhood or area of their city. Ask them to make field notes of their observations of the following:
o Roads
o Buildings
o Different trades
o Different types of people
3. Ask them to bring their notes with them the next day.
Guidelines- Day 2:
1. Repeat asking the same questions as asked on the previous day.
2. Introduce the topic ‘The First Cities’ with an outline of the chapter objectives and expected learning outcomes.
3. Have students read aloud the first half of the chapter in the textbook and then, explain the content for them in more detail.
4. Ask students what their notes were during the field trip to write them on the chalkboard or marker board.
5. Link what the students have read so far with what they learned during their field trip by making a mind map on the chalkboard or marker board.
While using the textbook of your educational board wherever you are in the world, you may also use the databases and links given below:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indus-civilization/Craft-technology-and-artifacts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ndRwqJYDM
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/key-components-civilization/
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/history-cities
In addition, here are some downloadable lesson plan formats you can use for teaching the lesson for each day and each week (courtesy of Visme):
Happy teaching!
