Cultural Identity & Landscapes – Benbecula Crofter Shares Traditions of Peatlands

Description

People Are Culture’s curriculum brings to life the subjects of Geography, History, Social Studies, and World Cultures with engaging, thought-provoking, and inspiring stories of real people around the world. Our interviews and feature profiles reveal the meaning and relevance of traditions and customs, and demonstrate the real-life impact of historical events and social change. Students can see life through the eyes of real people around the world with lessons that are authoritative, first-person accounts of people describing their own cultures.

People Are Culture’s content aligns with all ten of the National Social Studies standards.

NO AI is used in creating our material. Each interview and article was made in collaboration with the individuals featured, who reviewed and approved the piece prior to publication.

Included in this People Are Culture Reading & Reflection Assignment Module are four elements:

• General Overview of Cultural Identity
• Overview of Landscapes & Cultural Identity | Reflection Prompts
• 13-page PDF Feature story about crofting on the Isle of Benbecula
• Reflection Assignment | Benbecula Crofter Shares Traditions of Peatlands

Each lesson is likely to take a student three hours to do the readings and complete the comprehension/reflection exercises.

In this feature story about peat harvesting traditions on the Isle of Benbecula, you will hear a personal account and insights through crofting experiences, including:

• An overview of the crofting system unique to the Scottish Highlands and Islands, where crofters like Donald MacPhee occupy small land as “stewards in perpetuity” rather than owners and how this system connects families to specific patches of moorland across many generations
• A description of the traditional peat-harvesting process including “turfing” the bog by removing the top layer of grass and vegetation, “flicking” the pieces in a pattern to create stacks, and the older generation’s pride of having a tidy bog
• A history of Nunton House, which is one of the oldest buildings on Benbecula and the former home of the 18th-century Clan Ranald chief, and how Donald’s grandfather obtained part of the property through “land raids” after WWI
• Donald MacPhee’s personal connection to eleven generations of Clan Ranald peat cutters, including a sing-song rhyme he learned listing his ancestors’ names, his father’s love of working the bog for 43 days straight and helping elderly neighbors harvest their
  peat, and refusing to gain profit off his peat

Expected Learning Outcome:

This lesson includes clear expected learning outcomes that support students in understanding cultural identity through first-person perspectives, while building intercultural awareness and connections between individual experience and global traditions.

• Students will identify and describe key cultural practices and beliefs from the lesson’s focus community (i.e., Scottish culture).
• Students will articulate insights into their own cultural identities and how those identities relate to what they learned.
• Students will analyze how cultural expressions (like landscapes) reflect values, history, and social traditions.
• Students will compare perspectives across cultures while finding similarities and differences through human themes.
• Students will make connections between cultural traditions and broader global contexts (cultivation, tradition, cultural preservation), showing critical thinking about identity and intercultural understanding.

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