[Grace Jordan]

Hi Máirín,

Great ideas you have mentioned.  I love the idea of getting parents and grandparents involved, both as a motivation for children and also to ensure the information and learning does not stay in the school building but spread into the community.

 

I think encouraging children to travel in a more eco-friendly way is so important.  In my own school, lots of families live very locally and still drive to school in spite of heavy traffic congestion.  Even encouraging people to park up and walk a bit further would be a huge help to all and ease the stress in the mornings, as well as encourage healthy habits-scooting/walking etc.

 

 

[Grace Jordan]

In Dublin in recent years, we have the seen the effects of climate change through increased flooding and other extreme weather events (storms/extended heat waves/colder winters), a decrease in air quality and a threat of higher-than-average increases in sea levels.

I would introduce pupils to the project on the SFI website where young people have created ‘smart’ pebbles to track coastal erosion. I think this would spark conversation and creativity among pupils.
3 actions we could work on with pupils to slow down climate change would be:
1. Promote and encourage ‘car free’ days to reduce the carbon emissions we are producing in the local area. Pupils could create posters and track and graph each class’ alternative transport to measure success of the campaign
2. A school community tree planting campaign to build knowledge and understanding around the importance of green spaces and trees to promote cleaner air.
3. Develop a Climate Club at school with children that are interested in developing more climate-friendly practices in the school and local area.

[Grace Jordan]

I think Culture Days are a great way of informally teaching children about all cultures and allowing children and families from other places to share their foods and traditions with us all.

We are working on creating a Cook Book in our local area, along with our local Family Support Centre to share recipes from all the different nationalities living in the local community. This would bring parents from different backgrounds together and provide a sense of community and togetherness for all involved.

[Grace Jordan]

I teach near Balseskin National Reception Centre in North Dublin. The Fáilte project in Balseskin is run by the Jesuit Refugee Service. This project links with local agencies to provide a supportive and welcoming experience to refugees. The project promotes positive mental health through the provision of psycho-social education, information and advice and offers training opportunities to enhance wellbeing through the development of new skills. There is a strong link with the CDETB- (City Dublin Education and Training Board) in the area. There are courses in English, computers and football and gardening activities on offer to people in the reception centre.
In my role as Home/School Community liaison coordinator, I work with the refugee centre and other agencies to support families with the transition into our school. I do this by visiting the centre, providing welcome packs with uniforms and school materials for the children and I link closely with parents around any additional supports they need to help their children settle in our school.

[Grace Jordan]

Hi Caitriona,

Some great links mentioned here with the Green Schools initiative.  I find the children become really engaged with this and there is a healthy rivalry between classes to produce less waste.  We did a competition between classes to reduce the amount of paper waste and had pupils weigh the paper bins in each class per week.  It created great discussions and inventive suggestions around how to re-purpose scrap paper and reduce the amount of photocopying needed (e.g. pupils sharing worksheets etc).

[Grace Jordan]

I would focus on SDG 13: Climate Change with pupils. It is one that is constantly in the news and on our screens and impacts every person on the planet. I think it would be easy to create some whole-class or small group projects to make this relevant to children. Children could look at some of the factors impacting our climate today-for example the dangers of plastics to sea life. I think the pupils in my school would show interest in the marine life aspect to this topic. It would be lovely to have the children organise a beach clean up or design some @leave no trace’ posters to display on local beaches as a completion to this piece of work. They could learn about the AI robots that are cleaning the oceans around the world and look at ways that we as a school can encourage the local community to pay attention to our use and disposal of plastic materials-encouraging others to reduce, reuse, recycle etc.

[Grace Jordan]

Hi Colm,

I have seen very similar responses from children during integrated learning time in infants.   Children at this early age can have very black and white ideas about the world and their ways of making sense of what they see and experience.

I think, as mentioned books can be an excellent source of discussion regarding gender issues and can spark conversations around these beliefs and challenge them.

We also have a great responsibility as teachers to critique the sources we are using when teaching children. I remember printing some reources from Twinkl for the hospital and noticing that all the doctors in the photgraphs were male.  I reached out to Twinkl and asked them if they could offer more diverse photos with gender roles revesered-ie not just a male doctor and a female nurse.

I think sometimes, we may not have the time or energy to question and critique all our resources that we present to children but I believe we can be more mindful where possible in what narrative we present to children.

[Grace Jordan]

I have seen lots of examples of gender stereotyping within the classroom even at junior infant level. On one occasion, I overheard a boy telling another boy not to use a pink marker as that was “a girl’s colour”. This particular child’s favourite colour was pink and after this instance, he was a lot more hesitant to use pink.
We did some lessons on how colours are for everyone and looked at lots of images in the media of boys and girls wearing all sorts of colours including some favourite footballers etc to illustrate the points. When the issue came up after that, I would always repeat the mantra that all colours are for everybody, there’s no such thing as a girl’s colour or boy’s colour-you can like every and any colour you want.
I think we as adults need to look at our own gender biases also. I often see teachers asking girls to colour a picture and boys to play with blocks or build in the junior end. We tend to unconsciously comment on how girls look and how strong or brave boys are without a second thought. I think educating the adults is so important here and for this reason, some work around gender would be an excellent addition to staff CPD in schools. Again, this area of development education would link to many areas of the SPHE curriculum and also the Bí Cinealta framework in terms of creating a positive school environment that celebrates diversity, difference and emphasises inclusive, restorative practices.

[Grace Jordan]

Hi Lina,

You have made some interesting points. I absolutely agree that it is vital to link development education across various curricular areas to allow the depth and richness required to cultivate that interconnectedness among our pupils.  I think your point regarding having a whole-school approach and linking to the school’s values is integral to the success of developing a development education approach.  It would be important for colleagues to recognise that this is not an add-on to our already overloaded curriculum, but rather an area that will develop our pupils critical thinking, empathy and social awareness.

[Grace Jordan]

I think this paper is an important and thought-provoking article. I note that it was written in 2021 and unfortunately, I feel the writer’s message that he has
“observed a change in cultural attitudes towards the issue of racism and bigotry amongst Ireland’s citizens, particularly Irish, young people.” has unfortunately, likely taken a turn in more recent times with all the scare-mongering and inaccurate spreading of mis-information online regarding migrants and racism.
I do believe there are many young people that are active global citizens and conduct themselves accordingly but I think there needs to be greater education around critiquing information that is accessed online and the ability of our pupils to assess the information they are accessing, particularly online and critiquing the sources that are sharing this information. I think this would be a key area to tackle in terms of developing global citizenship in schools.

Schools have a great opportunity to develop connectedness among pupils of diverse backgrounds and with diverse needs. This lends itself to developing, as the author mentioned “our deep, symbiotic connection with all humans within the global family. This is an epiphany that sees us viewing the problems of our neighbours, as problems of our own.” I believe that, as educators, it is our responsibility to encourage children’s natural curiosity about the world. Often, we try and shield children from the sometimes horrific realities and struggles going on in the world but if we can learn about the hardships of others and look for small ways to make an impact or build awareness of the wider world, we are sowing the seeds for creating a future generation of young people that will see themselves as capable of recognising themselves as inextricably linked to all those on the earth and capable of eliciting change from government and world leaders.

I believe that a whole school approach to development education would be needed in a school. There are elements that complement the SESE, SPHE and wellbeing curricular areas. Recognising this fact and looking at how schools could add development education lessons across these curricular areas would assist with buy-in from school staff. Developing A Development Ed team in school could be one way to tackle this.

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