Culture in the Classroom. Teaching Aid Material for Teachers

“Culture in the Classroom” was conceived as a teaching aid guide aimed at helping those in the educational front line to become conversant with the concept of culture as defined by the UNESCO. In a country like Paraguay, possessing the invaluable asset of extensive bilingualism where the Guarani Indian language is spoken by a majority of the population regardless of the speakers’ ethnic origin, finding value in an individual’s background is a way to reaffirm self-steem and to assure persistence in schooling as a threshold to success in life. The task of helping local culture survive, first, and thrive, later, is made all the more opportune by the onslaught of globalization and its threat of condemning smaller societies mores and customs to oblivion in the wake of mass media indoctrination. The discipline, hence, has become a full fledged academic endeavor although the bibliography is still scarce but growing. The author seeks to make her contribution available to students and scholars of American and European universities looking at the field as a bona fide subject of academic endeavor, graduate theses and dissertations, and scholarly articles. Heritage, language, music, cuisine, dances and oral traditions appear in this useful teacher’s guide opening up a world of wonder and magic, legends and history.