Description

Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andrede and Guy Parker-Rees explores several interesting philosophical topics. The book gives us a great opportunity to discuss stereotypes. At the beginning of the book, the lions start laughing at Gerald before he even starts dancing. The animals seems to make negative assumptions about Gerald’s dancing skills just because he is a giraffe. When discussing the book with children, we can explore why the other animals make negative assumptions about Gerald. Did they see other giraffes dancing badly and assume that Gerald couldn’t dance? We could also apply this question to daily life. We can ask the first graders to investigate whether they ever make assumptions about others based on a group that they belong to. For example, do they ever think about someone differently because of the way they dress?