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I agree- the Green Schools is such a great way to teach the children so many areas of Development Education
In looking at how Climate Change is impacting on our own local area it is important to make sure that we have raised awareness of the affect of climate locally. An idea for this would be starting a Project with the pupils looking at the warmer weather in June recently and the effect of that ón farming is a good example- asking local dairy farmers how it affects growth and also what the farmer has to do to counteract this usually involves more fossil fuels being used e.g. zero grazing a farm far away to bring fresh gráss to the cows daily. The effect of the farm well and how múch more water each cow would drink.
A second idea to explore climate change would be to look at the effect of the recent storm ón the local village- do a project ón what happened and ask locally what interventions were there to cope with this and have any of these been changed or removed from local emergency plans. We could also ask the pupils to do a survey in relation to this and see the difference between different houses- what were the worst affected areas.
A third idea would be borrowed from our Green Flag initiative which is WOW Walk ón Wednesdays, to reduce fuel consumption and also to encourage the pupils to exercise more. This along with their parents will lead to a healthier community.
For the SSE in this instance I think by doing the Green Flag for the 5-7 years and starting back again we are fully covered in our evaluating how this is being taught in our school.
We had many refugees arrive to our community from Ukraine. They were settled in to the local secondary boarding school which had been closed. I was one of the people involved in helping them settle. The first thing I noticed was that it was our local GAA club that orchestrated everything and not the church- it would have been the church up to a few years ago. Through our GAA we immediately had the word out- we had a committee set up and within hours we were transporting beds, bedding, clothes, toiletries and toys. A group of retired teachers organised to help with English for the children. In time the owner of the building organised and invited the local community for gatherings and at Christmas they held a concert. Some of them started working locally and we still have pupils in our school from there. It showed that there is so much good in society and people are very kind. The EAL they received was a great help also and it was great to hear them starting to speak English. Some of the pupils have joined our GAA club and this was great for the parents so assimilate. Other parents have volunteered with projects in our Community Council, again making new connections and friendships.
To highlight and include in my teaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Ireland, aligned with ESD to 2030 Priority Action Area 5, I think it would be a good idea to make a connection with these issues locally , highlight the problems/issues that the pupils can relate to and start a project about it from there. For example a simple idea that I have done with my class is in relation to waste, littering and the environment – we use the local GAA pitch and walkway ón a daily basis and the pupils have found that there is always rubbish left around. As well as collecting the waste we also have made signs in Art class to ask the public for help in keeping the area waste-free. As well we have ordered a new ReTurn bottle bin to encourage people to use this. This has actually raised another problem – people are using the ReTurn bin for ordinary waste and food so the pupils had to then make more signs and do more research into why people are doing this. A simple initiative that started as our five-minute daily run has highlighted a lot of issues for us to explore. This also led the pupils in raising awareness and promoting good citizenship throughout the other classes in our school- which was a motivation to be active citizens, supporting sustainable change at the local level in line with Ireland’s commitments under the ESD for 2030 framework. With regards to School Self Evaluation the next step would be to do surveys ón our pupils and the wider community to see how we could combat this problem collaboratively and get feedback also.
Gender stereotypes can affect children at a young age. Often they are very simple and can affect how the children perceive themselves in society and can affect their own choices- and careers later on. It starts so early in a child’s life that it is hard to see it as a rule it is normalised- girls with dolls insinuates that women are better caregivers and homemakers and boys with machines insinuates that men are better at maths and are strong. In school it can come across in the classroom that girls are quieter and expected not to answer back and boys can ‘get away with’ this behaviour. Development education can highlight the opposite of this- showing female soldiers, male nurses etc. In school we can highlight this-even locally mentioning the local female firefighter etc. it is important in the older classes to explore these gender stereotypes in media,schools and society in general. Through Development Education we can explore careers for the pupils that are not defined by their gender.
In School self evaluation it is possible to ask are our children encouraged to be open and accepting to all scenarios. It should be normal for the girls and boys to do the same jobs around the school and all subjects are encouraged for all e.g. sewing- fabric & fibre is for all.
It is very important to encourage our children to look at things globally, to see how unequal things are in the world,to highlight the inequalities to them. It is also equally important to develop a sense of understanding and empathy in the pupils. Development Education does this and is essential to pupil’s learning. It is also important to allow the children to realise what they can do to help and make a difference. In an social situation we have to think about what we can do- a small role in our global community. There are so many examples of social inequality that we can study to raise awareness of this- at the moment the war in Gaza is an example. We can use a cross- curricular approach to global education- it is possible to include it in so many subjects. I find that RTÉ News2Day is a fantastic resource for this. It highlights so many issues and news around the globe. It is also an important part of this paper that issues are addressed locally- we can encourage the pupils to think locally also- is the local coffee shop using Fairtrade beans for instance?
In terms of School self evaluation we can ask are the pupils encouraged to take action about these issues. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to highlight so many issues to the pupils and raise awareness of them.