Challenge 2 -group assignments
April 04 - May 08 / 2016
On Monday morning April 4th, we will start the second challenge.
Part 2 of this challenge is a individual (peerScholar) assignment for all students,
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'The right to learn and play'.Introduction
A report by the UN children's organization UNICEF:
"The right to education exists only on paper for many children. There are about 132 million children who can not go to school, even if they have all that same rights as you. Currently more children than before go to a primary school, but often the quality of education is poor. Especially girls and children are disadvantaged in rural areas. And who comes from a poor family, stays home four times more often than children from wealthier families. Despite economic growth in many developing and emerging countries, poverty remains the greatest threat to children. By malnutrition in early childhood learning opportunities are also limited. Especially children in fragile states such as Afghanistan, Somalia and South Sudan have poor living conditions. Worldwide, approximately 250 million children are working. They do not get the opportunity to attend education and develop. That makes it very difficult to break the vicious circle of poverty. Children also compete in the job market with their parents. Child labor is cheaper than labor of adults. This won't provide parents a chance to earn a viable income and send their children to school. By banning child labor, we give adults and children the chance to struggle out of poverty."
What are we going to do?
In this challenge you will first discuss and explore in your group what 'good education and free time' means to you. You can share the outcome of those conversations on your own school page.
Then we start with the assignments, in this challenge there are four. You can choose for one or more assignments, or divide them over the groups in your class.
During these weeks we also continue supporting the project 'A school for Nepal'. By organizing a funding action at your school you can enable the rebuilding of a safe school, together with the Expedition Team of Lyceum De Grundel. Together we are stronger! Read in the Nepal wiki how high the counter is now. Also hear from Sajita, Bikash and Birsha how the reconstruction progresses..
How do we face this challenge and what do we need?
Also in this challenge several articles of the Convention on Children's Rights are discussed. They are about the right to (good) education, time to play and protection against child labor.
Step 1 - A conversation
We mention some articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to ensure that children can learn and should be able to play safely and have a childhood.
Also in this challenge we've made a page with reflective questions for each of the articles that you can easily download and print. You can ask each other the questions in small groups, or use them for a debate with the whole class. This way you'll start a conversation and hear from each other what the right to learn and play means to you. Please share the results of these conversations on your own school page. You can do this with a text, pictures, a poster, a mindmap or in your own way.
Step 2 - Choose one or more of the assignments After the conversation, we will start with the assignments. With your class, you can choose to do one or more of the assignments OR you will each choose an assignment within small groups. The assignments are the following:
Assignment 1 - Design your own school of learning environment.
You are part of a school. We are curious if you are really satisfied with your school and whether you like to go to school. If you could rate your school, what would it be? Is this rating based on the building, the way you can learn there or just for the place, which is fine and safe to be?
Before you start designing, we ask you to show us what is special about your own school. Can you explain with a picture or drawing what the nicest place in your school is and why?
Imagine you can design a whole new school: What would that school look like? How would you organize and decorate the building and how can you best learn, play and meet each other?
Maybe this drawing can inspire you:
or this one?
We would like you to answer the following questions before you start designing:
Design your own school - how do you proceed?
Ask yourself this question: "How could my school or classroom look like in 2020?" Please also use the answers to the questions above.
You now have the opportunity to show how your ideal school looks like and how you can learn at this school:
Assignment 2 - Research - Check your belongings.
Check your gear! Look closely at the stuff you have. Your shoes, T-shirt, cell phone ... do you know where they come from and who produced them? In other words: Do you know how 'cool' your stuff actually is?
When you buy products in a store, it's sometimes hard to see who made them. Maybe children made your clothes, shoes or toys. Did they harvest the cocoa and hazelnuts for your chocolate? It is important to know who made the products that you want to buy, so you can make your own choice in what to buy. To inform you, as a consumer, companies can contribute to the fight against child labour!
No child labour in this world... How can you help to reach that goal? By not buying these things? The result will be that those children have no work, so no food and no alternative. Is there another way that works?
Yes, there are many organizations that are committed to 'Child Labour Free Zones’. These are villages or areas where child labour no longer exists and where everyone works together to make it possible for children to go to school and improve the education. A change from ‘child labour is a necessary evil’ to ‘child labour is unacceptable’.
Take a look at this video:
How do you proceed?
You can think of all kinds of things, but there's only one way to really find out; by researching yourself to find out what the truth is behind all the stuff you buy! Because you can make a difference:
Choose a way to share in this wiki what you've discovered in your research.
Assignment 3 - A letter to Urmila
The story of Urmila and the kamalari-systeem
Urmila (21) from Nepal was six when she was given away by her parents to a rich family with whom they were in debt. She was a kamalari (house slave), like thousands of other girls in Nepal. Urmila worked from early morning till late at night in the household of her 'master', without ever earning a penny.
Let us see the story of Urmila Chaudary up close for the next assignment:
Please look at the video:
Write a letter to Urmila:
Assignment 4 - No education for children in refugee camps?
Double bad luck
Abandon your house and land because it is no longer safe and then end up in a strange place where you can not go to school ....
Ahmed (14) and Mahmoud (15) are working in the dump. The boys fled from Syria and must work in Turkey in order to survive. They are dirty from head to toe, but they are laughing and have tough talk. "This morning we didn't have a hot shower," Ahmed says. "You liar", Mahmoud says. "We do not even have a shower."
UNICEF News, By Kusali Kubwalo
For Syrian children living as refugees in Jordan, drop-in centres are helping to provide education and psychosocial support for those who have missed out on learning, including many like Ahmed, who has had to choose work over school.
ZA’ATARI, Jordan, 15 July 2015 – Sporting a bright yellow jersey and a wide grin, Ahmed* greets us at the football field outside the drop-in centre in Za’atari camp. He has just scored a goal and his team is ecstatic.
Ahmed, 13, fled his Syrian homeland with his family two years ago, but had to choose work over returning to school.
Ahmed has been out of formal school for three years. Back home in Da’ra, Syria, he dropped out of school because it was too dangerous to leave the house. When he arrived with his family in Za’atari refugee camp two years ago, Ahmed realized he would not be able to rejoin school as he had hoped.
“My brother and I got jobs selling cigarettes, because we needed to support our family. I had no choice,” Ahmed says.
Their father stayed behind in Syria, and the two brothers had to shoulder the responsibility of supporting their elderly mother and two sisters. They worked about 12 hours a day.
Lately, Ahmed has cut down to working a six-hour evening shift and spends some of his free time at a UNICEF-supported drop-in centre in the camp. He wants to invest his time in learning a trade. He is not sure yet what trade to pursue, but he knows he must learn something useful and practical to earn money.
In partnership with Save the Children International, UNICEF supports three such drop-in centres in Za’atari camp, where children can get literacy and numeracy skills, learn a trade or just play and have fun. Around 80 children, many of them working children, visit the centres every day, at all sorts of times.
“I feel happy here,” Ahmed says. “At this place, I can have fun, and every day I learn so much. The math I learn here also helps me with my work.”
Children from Syria attending 'school' in a refugee camp in Suruc in Turkye.
Now start your own research on lack of education and child labor in refugee camps.
There are many sites with information about this distressing situations. Fortunately there are many people and many organizations which offer all possible help to the children who have fled. To give them some new hope, a dream, a future ...
Use your imagination and your best ideas. Good luck!
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Background information and Resources Dutch page: Bronnen (in sidebar Dutch Circles)
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Click on the name of your school or the button!
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Lyceum de Grundel | Montessori College Arnhem |
De Meergronden | |
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National College B P Hasdeu | Senator O'Connor College School | King City Public School | Hope School |