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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) State Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.”
“1) The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice.”
ACTIVITY “On what questions and under what circumstances should they be interested in my opinion?” Aims:
Materials:
Procedure: Step I Write the question on the blackboard: ”In what situations and on what questions should people be interested in my opinion?” and ask the pupils to write this down in their exercise books. Set the task for each pupil individually to answer this question and explain the procedure. Hand out to each pupil a set of situational cards. Tell the students that the first thing they have to do is to get acquainted with the content of the situations and each one of them to decide in which of the situations his or her opinion should be taken into consideration and in which - it is not necessary. Each pupil should rank the situational cards in such a way that at the top s/ he should put the most important situation for him/her, the one that is most important for his opinion to be taken into consideration. S/he should put second the situation that s/ he thinks comes next in importance and so on. After the ranking is over the pupils are expected to stick them in their notebooks in the order in which they have already ranked them. The last thing that students have to do is to choose one of the situations and in their exercise books to write down what sort of questions they would like to be asked to them at home in relation to that situation, so that their right to express their own opinion is taken into consideration. After finishing the task offer to the pupils to share their exercise books in pairs (as they are sitting at their desks). Encourage them to actively communicate , share and compare their experiences expressing opinion on the situations thus presented. Some students (if they wish so) may read before all the questions which they would like to ask at home in the situation that has been chosen by them. In the end suggest that the pupils share with the members of their own families at home the results of the work on this activity. Remark: This activity will bring forth the real needs of each pupil to be respected and treated with confidence at home. The ranking/prioritising of the situations will show the deficiency of communication between the members of a given family for concrete/specific reasons and can help parents to orientate themselves in some of their mistakes, as well as to prompt them different ways in which they could overcome them. That is why it is necessary to prepare parents in advance to show interest in the results of the activity. To meet with understanding their children’s needs and to actively participate in the life of the family by expressing their opinion on all the problems, which concern their interests. Step II The experience that pupils have gained as a result of their work on Step I, will help them manage successfully this part of the activity. Write on a piece of flipchart paper (or on the blackboard) the following question: ”In what situations and on what questions do people have to be interested in my opinion at school?” and ask this question to the whole class. Focus the pupils’ attention on describing conflict situations that have to do with the relationships between classmates, teachers and pupils, students and the administrative staff at school. Write down the students’ suggestions under the question. After presenting the answers you can offer the following questions in order to carry out a discussion:
Situation Cards “In what sort of situations and on what problems
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