Shoebox Activity and Artifacts

This week we had to bring in a shoebox and whatever items we would fill it with if we could only take what was in the box. This was an interesting activity for me, because I was basically living with what you could fill a shoebox with at the time. My daughter was born and sent right to the NICU and I had to make use of some clothes, but only what I kept as essentials stayed with me beyond that. For my activity I had my hospital band, phone, camera, laptop, watch, and wallet on me. I kept these with me at the hospital and at school. I carried them everywhere I went. I realized as this activity was going on, these are my cultural tools, and why they are significant enough to take them with me everywhere and everyday.

This activity is a good way to look at what defines us, and this in turn is a great first step in helping students to gain a concept of culture. These things I carried might not have been tools for surviving the great outdoors, but they were tools for surviving my culture. I needed these things for the days at school and at the hospital. My world depended on it. That is a great starting place for culture and cultural tools. Someday down the line, people  might scoff or laugh at what I would have taken with me at that point, much the way we might scrutinize the tools a caveman took with them. But to the time and place- these things matter. That is an important aspect of a globally integrated world that we and our children will probably live in. They need to understand the context of time, place, and culture in order to learn how to respect and coexist with other peoples.