KS34: How do we identify, label or perceive ourselves? Does this affect how we perceive and treat others? Are we a “single person” inside or a whole nation of different characters struggling to co-exist? How much of our self-image is created by society, and how much by ourselves?
Ask pupils to describe who they are through writing, drawing or by using symbols. How did they categorise or label themselves? Was it in terms of family, name, character, place of origin, religion or sport? In what other ways might they perceive themselves? As a citizen of the world? A human being? Part of life on the earth? Stardust? What if the Nazis had seen themselves more as equal human beings of the world, rather than an Arian super race? Would that have changed history?
Now investigate whether there is a connection between how we define ourselves and how we perceive and treat others. How should or shouldn’t we define ourselves?