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© 2000, Mariana Mincheva-Rizova, Ilian Rizov, MODELS FOR TEACHING THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD (I-IV grade) |
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"1) The child…shall have the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents. "
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ACTIVITY “What will happen if Karlson, Pippi Longstocking and The Little Prince swap their homes?” Aims:
Procedure: At the beginning check whether pupils know who Karlson, the Little Prince and Pippi Longstocking are. If necessary devote some time to remind them of different events related to the life of these characters. Read out to the whole class the following extracts from the corresponding books. And set the pupils the task to think why the homes of these characters are all very extraordinary? Karlson’s Home “The little houses situated on the roofs can be really very cosy especially if they are like Karlson’s. His house has green droplets on the windows and a little outside staircase, something like a porch, extremely comfortable to sit on. Here one can sit in the evening and gaze at the stars, while at daytime s/he can drink fruit juice and crunch cookies provided there are cookies of course. …Karlson’s little house was very old-fashioned. There was neither electricity nor water supply. Karlson had an oil lamp which lit the house in the evening and he used the water from the rainwater barrel which was standing in one of the corners in his little house… It was getting dark…The buildings suddenly acquired a completely different shape they became dark and enigmatic, and in the end -completely black. As if he had cut them with a huge pair of scissors from black paper and has added only a few rectangles from golden tin-foil instead of windows. The lighted rectangles in the whole blackness became more and more numerous because the people started lighting the lamps in their homes…Through the windows it could be seen how people moved about busy doing this and that and one could wonder what they were doing who they were and why they lived exactly there and not somewhere else….Karlson did not wonder. - Poor people they have to live somewhere, don’t they - he thought.- Not everyone can have a house on the roof.” The Home of Pippi Longstocking "There was a deserted garden in the outskirts of the small town. In the middle of the garden there was an old house and Pippi Longstocking lived in it. She was 9 years old and lived there all by herself… Pippi’s father had bought the old house with the garden many years ago. He had decided to live here with Pippi when he would grow old and wouldn’t be able to criss cross the seas. But it happened so that he disappeared in the sea and while she was waiting for him to come, Pippi decided to go to Villa Vilecula. This was the name of the house which was ready, furnished and was waiting for its inhabitants. On a beautiful summer evening Pippi said goodbye to all sailors on her father’s ship… Pippi took two things from her father’s ship. A small monkey named Nilson - a gift from her father -and a big bag, full of gold coins. ... She was really a remarkable child. The extraordinary thing about her was her strength. Pippi was exceedingly strong…she could lift a whole horse with her hands and she often did so. She had a horse -she had bought it with the one of the many gold coins on the day when she moved to Villa Vilecula. For a long time she had dreamt about her own horse. Now it was living on the porch, but when Pippi wanted to drink there her afternoon coffee, she took it out to the garden in an offhand manner.” The Home of the Little Prince “ It took me a long time to understand where he had come from…his home planet was a little bigger than a house…. …on the planet of the little prince there were frightful seeds.. baobab seeds. … On the Little Prince’s planet there were very simple flowers only with one row of leaves which took no room and disturbed nobody. They appeared in the grass early in the morning and faded in the evening. But this flower had cropped up one day from a seed that was brought God knows from where and the Little Prince had taken great care of the stalk which didn’t look like the rest of the stalks…it soon stopped growing tall and began preparing to bloom….It was cautiously picking up its colours. It dressed slowly, trimming one by one its leaves. …It wanted to appear in its full glory. … It was a great coquette! … (the Little Prince) had two active volcanoes. Thus it was very convenient for him to warm his morning breakfast. There was a dormant volcano as well but as he used to say himself: “One never knows what could happen!…When volcanoes are well cleaned they burn slowly and regularly, without erupting. …” Having read the extracts help the pupils to cope with the task ( to answer why these homes are extraordinary) by asking them the following questions:
What could happen if Karlson, Pippi Longstocking and the Little prince swap their homes? Will their life change in some way if they themselves change in a way? For example how would the Little Prince feel in Pippi’s home, or how would Karlson feel in the home of the Little Prince?
Karlson: ”Not everyone can have a house on the roof.”; Pippi Longstocking: “I am a child, this is my house and so it is a children’s home./a nursery/ There is room in it, a lot of room at that!”; The Little Prince: “ The place where I live is very small and that is why I cannot show you my star. But it is better that way. For you my star will be just one of all stars…And then you will enjoy watching all stars…Since I’m going to live on one of them, since I’m going to laugh on one of them - when you look at the sky at one of them - when you look at the sky at night it will seem to you that all stars are laughing. You will have stars that know how to laugh!” With the help of the following questions in the process of discussing you can elicit the following main ideas: (1) Everybody has the right to live in a home he likes and desires. (2) Everybody can make his home comfortable according to his own understanding and needs; to make it suitable for himself/herself - to make it look like himself/herself. Homes usually look like their inhabitants because that is their personal, private place. (3) Everybody needs in the place where s/he lives to have at least “his/her own corner”, which can be called only theirs and where s/he can be alone with himself/herself - he could close his/her eyes and calmly dream or concentrate and think about his/her future plans. Step II The next part comparatively short as an activity is a suggestion to conclude the discussion that has been started (in step I). Direct the pupils’ thinking from the fantasy images to the reality which offers various examples of homes considerably different from the ones we tend to notice. Thus you could ensure a logical transition to activity 3. Possible questions:
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