How to celebrate World Children’s Day in your classroom

In my previous article, I wrote about how we can teach students skills they can apply beyond the classroom. This article will focus on how to celebrate World Children’s Day with your students, providing a new angle on global events. 

As educators, we have the opportunity to have global events as our living laboratory to illustrate the principles and concepts we teach. Then by extension, we have the challenge of navigating the plethora of ideas students build, form and express in our classrooms, helping them to be authentic and to consider and develop new perspectives. 

One of these events is World Children’s Day, celebrated worldwide on November 20. The objective of this day is to ensure “Inclusion, for every child” as per the official theme. This day challenges everyone to think about creating a more equal and inclusive world for children, with children taking centre stage in the initiative. 

As an educator I think this challenge is an opportunity to be a catalyst in students’ understanding of their educational journey, helping them to express what their journey means to them and to engage with it.  While it is true that we often transfer ideas to students, we can ask ourselves as educators: how can we train our ability to let students express their opinions, views and contradictions while letting them be authentic and relevant within the context of the environment that shapes their ideas? 

World Children’s Day provides this opportunity.  

With my students, I have been using the UNICEF slogan for World Children’s Day to make the most of this opportunity. I gave my students a range of activities to let them investigate the rights included in the UN Convention on the rights of the child that they are both passionate and concerned about. The students were given a document outlining the rights included in the Convention and they had to choose a right they wanted to focus on. Then, they researched the right of their choice, and they produced a poster to illustrate their findings and their thoughts. This could include drawings, statistics, images and other elements to illustrate their interpretation of an equal world and finally to communicate their ideas to their peers. This project was also done by students in other year groups, as the teachers in the department engaged their students as well. The activity was given to students in years 7 to 10. 

Here are some activities you can try in your school... 

1. A challenge: students can draw an image to reflect their idea of a better world for children and then present it to their peers, explaining what their idea entails.

2. When you give students a challenge, ensure this is a practical task and that is doable in their community and with their family. Challenge them to mobilise those around them and be world changers. For example, for my current challenge, students will take a picture with their family dressed in blue, and share it with the class. UNICEF has a ‘go blue’ challenge: to go blue symbolises taking a stand in support of children’s rights.

This activity will allow students to transmit their vision of what this day represents. Giving students an activity to do with their families will generate dialogue on global issues among their family members and create opportunities to learn new perspectives from each other.  

3. Conferences and peer workshops are effective techniques to encourage students to reflect and learn new perspectives.

Conferences can be planned to raise awareness on which children’s rights are being respected, and the extent to which basic rights are not. This provides a forum for students to exchange ideas, garner new perspectives from their peers and involve experts in the parents' community in the dialogue. For example, at our school, we planned a conference on human trafficking with a guest speaker who is a parent and a member of the school community. They will present on the reality of human trafficking and internally displaced persons, including refugees, a large portion of whom are children. This parent is an expert in the field who works with the UNHCR, United Nations High Commission for Refugees. 

It is important to engage the parent community in the dialogue as this also leads to building new layers of thought you may not have considered. For example, a parent proposed to be a speaker on online safety for children in one of my classes. This parent has also proposed to be accompanied by a guest expert on the issue. This is a great idea that I had not considered and will provide students with plenty of information and perspectives on the rights they choose to focus on. 

Students will gain new insight into children’s rights from experts who are within our communities and who are welcome to participate in the classroom, enriching the learning experience.

4. Make use of official resources. International organisations, such as UNICEF, have free resources you can use to build dialogue on these topics. For example, you can request blue ribbons free of cost from your local UNICEF office and free material on human rights available on their website. You can also invite members of their volunteer team, as part of their portfolio includes interventions in schools.

5. Collaborate with your team on the topic and share techniques and tools across different subjects. In our school, my colleagues joined in and carried out activities at various levels in their subjects.  Other subjects in humanities or other domains can join together for a community effort. Our STEAM Department allowed students to create images and letters in 3-D to decorate the wall we created to display the posters. A student will also use wood to create the UNICEF symbol using a 3-D printer with the assistance of the STEAM team. This has enhanced the creativity of the wall and the clarity of the message. The wall has generated dialogue among students on the topics presented.

As an educator leading this activity, I have been amazed to see what students are teaching each other from drawing an image. Students were able to handle difficult conversations on some tragic realities children around the world face. They were able to present them from varied angles thanks to the universal language of art.  

My perspective has been challenged, seeing the topic presented by different students - with their pencil artistry opening conversations that would otherwise not happen and be difficult to start as a teacher. This activity showed them the importance of sharing ideas in a global community and will hopefully lead to students looking to the future with thoughts that extend beyond the classroom – and embracing their role as the leaders of tomorrow. 

 

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