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I agree that culture days are fantastic. We host several each year and it’s always a success. An effective way of getting everybody involved!
<span style=”font-size: 17px;”>In Dublin there are many organisations working with refugees such as Crosscare, Migrant Homeless Action Team and A Place to Call Home to name but a few. Working in Community National School, we have a huge number of students from all around the world with different backgrounds and circumstances. We provide EAL to students. This is hugely beneficial and integral to the students success in our society. We often have community days where all of the children can bring in things from their culture, such as food, clothes, music and items of importance. This is also open to parents. It’s a fantastic way to help parents and students settle in and feel seen in their new lives here. Everybody learns from these days, teachers, students and parents alike. We could also think about hosting days like a talent show/school play/bake sale to help in raising money for local organisations that get all the children involved. </span>
<!–/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_240722_144610_857.sdocx–>You’ve suggested some really sinple yet effective ideas herem such as your WOW and COW days. This for a city school like mine is deffenitely something I’ll be suggesting in September!
I am working in a West Dublin school. The main issues we are being evidently faced with currently as a result of climate change is the increased amount of more extreme weather conditions and rising temperatures. A huge cohort of the students I teach come from other countries, most of which are experiencing much more challenges in terms of climate change. I think it is really beneficial that the Irish children in the class are hearing directly about how classmates families living abroad are beign so badly effected. Some initiatives we could do in school is develop a recycling program, with children who will come around and check bins each day. There could be an incentive for the children, such as more play time if they are the “greenest” class of the week. This could also incorpoate a second idea of ensuring that the energy within the school is being monitored, like turning off the lights, the interactive boards, ensuring no water waste etc. Developing a school garden is also a lovely way of getting the children involved in planting, seeing how they can grow their own fruits and vegetables, and can provide for the local wild animals and minibeasts, such as researching which plants they could grow that are bee friendly.
Hi Claire,
Unfotunatley it seems that the waste surrounding hot lunches in common place in schools recently. When the children had cold lunches they could easily be distrubuted to families who may be in need, however now most days I am seeing quite frankly, mounds of food being thrown out. I work in a school with approx. 1000 children. Towards the end of the year with famlies travelling abroad/going to their home countries, the waste was sinful and really struck a chord with the staff. Sad to see this is happening all over the country!
It is future generations that will feel even more of a negative impact as a result of climate change. I think it is essential to hightlight the importance of this in school, particularly here in Ireland where the damages and challenges are less evident than elsewhere in the world currently. Of course, Ireland is being affected by climate change, but most children here are not yet seeing the impacts as much as in other countries. Children can be inspired to take a variety of actions to support SDG 13. Putting into practice whole-school initiatives, such as recycling programs, tree planting, developing school gardens, litter pickers, energy saving initiatives etc are simple, yet affective measures that can be taken. They are also accessable to all age groups in primary school. These help students develop a sense of accountability and develop an understanding of their role in tackling climate change and how every little thing can make a difference. By boosting actions at a local level, we can help cultivate a generation that is aware of sustainability and a population that is dedicated to making a positive impact not only directly in their own comunities, but also in the wider world.
I totally agree Clodagh. I make sure to have dicussions each time I hear a comment being made or witness a situation in which stereotypical gender roles are at play. If it’s discussed almost daily, change will eventually happen, slowly but surely.
I myself have only ever taught in the junior end of school, so most of my observations have been with children in the infant classrooms. It is quite frankly almost an everyday observation, and from reading other posts on this forum, it seems to be common place in society. This is something I really try and tackle from the first day. During free play, children tend to choose toys based on what they believe their gender should be associated with. I have often witnessed children say that another child can’t play with them because they are playing with a boys/girls game. These comments are not being said in a malicious way, they are simply stating what they believe to be “facts”. This shows how deeply ingrained these steroetypes are in society. This type of mentality is depriving children of the chance to develop skills in areas they may have the ability to thrive in. Early introduction and emphasis on development education may help children challenge these unfair and inequal social standards giving them greater freedom and an improved ability to interact with people of different genders. Last year, I took 2 days in the week where I provided all the children with “only boys”/”only girls” toys. All the children engaged with all toys and interracted wonderfully. This lead to really impactful and effective discussions at an infant level.
It is fair to say that the world is ever changing. This is no different to here in Ireland, a county that is undoubtedly becoming more and more multicultural. Development Education, in my opinion, has never been more important. It is our job as teachers to give the children the opportunity to explore global issues, such as human rights, inequality, migration, poverty, pollution, and climate change. Children must be exposed to these topics in forder for them to understand what is happening in the world they live in. Through Development Education, empathy is developed and fostered. It is through empathy that the want for change will occur within young people. People need empathy for society to grow in a constructive and positive way. People are motivated to act and participate in global citizenship by this. Working in a Community National School myself, we place a lot of emphasis on Development Education, particularly through our ethics programme “Goodness Me! Goodness You!”, which allows the children to access challenging topics in a child friendly manner.