Proverbs and expressions

Don’t be a cloud if you can be the sky.Don’t be a feather if you can be a bird and fly!

Complete the following “bird” proverbs and then match the short explanation with the correct proverb or expression.

[LO 6.4.3]

Now how about having some Roald Dahl kind of fun? You know, where you twist the ending to make it amusing.

EXAMPLE: Have you ever wondered about the worm in the saying, “The early bird catches the worm.” Would it be correct then to say, “The early worm gets caught.”

Take any well-known proverbs or expressions and give them a twist.

Celebrate diversity

Take a look around you. Notice how different you appear from the outside. Just imagine how vastly different each one is on the inside of their heads and hearts too.

Instead of trying to blend in and be like everyone else, be proud of and celebrate your unique differences and qualities.

To understand this, try the following in your group. Each person must bring a different fruit to add toward making a bowl of fruit salad. Once you have added the sliced fruit to the bowl, enjoy eating it. You will notice that a fruit salad is delicious, precisely because each fruit maintains its own flavour.

(Compare this to soup, which has many different ingredients, and is then put in a blender. Lovely and thick and tasty - but notice the colour and try to identify individual vegetables!)

So now you have taken time out to get to know yourself better and you have had time to get to know others around you better too. Hopefully you will have enjoyed a deliciously tasty bowl of fruit salad and taken the decision to remain true to your own character and not become blended soup.

The challenge now is:

Roadblocks to celebrating diversity

1. Ignorance

This means you don’t have the slightest clue what other people believe, how they feel or what they have experienced to make them the way they are.

Ignorance often shows itself at its worst when it comes to understanding people with disabilities. A young deaf girl said the question she hates most is:

“What’s it like being deaf?”

Her answer?

“I don’t know. What’s it like being hearing? It isn’t like anything. It just is.”

2. Cliques

Birds of a feather flock together. But what do they learn from one another if they are all alike?

If you consider your sister to be talkative and you are the quiet type, instead of being irritated by her, get her to help you with your prepared oral next time!

In other words, try to learn from the strengths of others.

How do your class groups allow for this? Who are YOU in the “zoo”?

Cliques / collective nouns

A collective noun is given to a collection or group of similar persons, animals or things - e.g. herd, bunch, flock.

The box below contains a number of collective nouns. Insert them in the correct spaces in the phrases below:

litter; flock; choir; school; batch; galaxy; plague; kindle

3. Prejudice

No matter where you are born, everyone starts out as a baby. No matter how rich or poor you are, how short or tall, powerful or humble, everyone finally dies.

All men are born equal, but are they treated equally?

Take a look at Denver and Jason. The punch-line makes you think, doesn’t it? How did you (and I) become prejudiced? We were not born prejudiced. So how did it happen?

. You have had the opportunity to get to know a number of people in your class, both boys and girls. Write a humorous piece entitled “VIVE LA DIFFERENCE!” to celebrate gender differences.

Rate your openness to diversity in each of the following categories. Are you a shunner, tolerator or celebrator?

Right, let us put your brain into gear!

As a group, do a PNI analysis of DIVERSITY. A what?

P = POSITIVE facts

N = NEGATIVE facts

I = INTERESTING facts

If we cannot end our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity.

JF Kennedy

Using the information about diversity, synergy and prejudice that you have gathered so far, hold a class debate on the quote by JF Kennedy.

The following poem by an unknown source tells the sad tale of what happens when people pre-judge one another:

The cold within

Six humans trapped by happenstance, in bleak and bitter cold,

Each one possessed a stick of wood, or so the story’s told.

Their dying fire in need of logs, the first man held his back,

For of the faces ‘round the fire, he noticed one was black.

The next man looking ‘cross the way saw one not of his church,

And couldn’t bring himself to give the fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes, he gave his coat a hitch,

Why should his log be put to use to warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought of the wealth he had in store,

And how to keep what he had earned from the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man’s face bespoke revenge as the fire passed from sight,

For all he saw in his stick of wood was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group did naught except for gain,

Giving only to those who gave was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death’s still hand was proof of human sin,

They didn’t die from the cold without – they died from the cold within.

Poet unknown

How’s your heart? Cold within? How will your heart contribute to the future of this country, this world?

As a group, do a 2-minute presentation, as if for TV,

Making diversity safe in South Africa

Write, from your heart, a piece entitled PREJUDICE.

Celebrating similarities and differences

Synonyms

Match up the words in the left-hand column with the word of the samemeaning in the right-hand column.

Antonyms

Change the meanings of the words in italics, in the phrases below, to their opposites.

Homonyms

Write down words that are pronounced similarly to those below, but are spelt differently (sent / cent). Also use your words in a sentence which will make its meaning clear. (I received one cent change.)

1. Birds of a feather flock together.

2. The early bird catches the worm.

3. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

4. Fine feathers make fine birds.

5. A bird’s view OR A bird’s eye view.

6. The bird has flown.

7. To kill two birds with one stone.

8. A little bird told me.

Match:

1. (f)

2. (e)

3. (g)

4. (h)

5. (d)

6. (a)

7. (c)

8. (b)

(a) choir

(b) galaxy

(c) school

(d) flock

(e) plague

(f) litter

(g) kindle

(h) batch

1. (c)

2. (i)

3. (e)

4. (a)

5. (h)

6. (j)

7. (f)

8. (b)

9. (d)

10. (g)

1. beautiful / pretty

2. minimum

3. public

4. senior

5. success

1. flower

2. heard

3. four / for

4. fowl

5. weak

6. peace

7. profit

8. key