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I completely agree reducing the plastic in lunch boxes and zero waste. In our school we are trying to tackle this with our Green Schools Committee. The committee members ran an awareness campaign of how to reduce plastic in lunch boxes (posters, presentations) and are acting as monitors in terms of what goes in the bin and there are posters reminding pupils to take their waste home.
In Ireland clinate change can clearly be seen in our much warmer summers and the amount of extreme weather events we are having in the winter. In my own local area we have found a marked decrease in bees and other mini beasts. Previously our infant classes would have great fun on mini beast hunts but now they are lucky to find one thing.
TO help tacke climate change we have a very active Green School. We have installed bug hotels and had a visit from a biodiversity officer from our local council to see how we can help mini beasts. We also have walk to school Fridays, don’t let the drip drop water campaign, rubbish monitors and pickers. In June the Green School COmmittee held a fundraiser where pupils brought in their return bottles and cans.
We also are a Unicef Rights Respecting School. At the beginning of each school year each class creates a class charter based on the rights of the child and we link this to climate change.
All of this work is ongoing and has not been part of the formal SSE process. Having completed this course I think we as a school should use the SSE process to assess how we are doing, assess parents views and to have a plan of where we are going.An organisation that supports refugees in my local area is the Clonakilty Friends of Asylum Seekers. The orgranisation supports refugees living in the Clonakilty Lodge Accommodation Center since 2002. The organisation offer support in many ways. They offer support in living in Clonakilty, social welfare entitlements, support with the asylum service, housing supports and support with employment. On a day to day basis local people volunteer their time running homework clubs and bringing children on trips to local activities such as rock climbing and zip lining. What is really clever and enterprising on their part is an SOS section on their website. This section provides help in a variety of languages; Albanian, Urdu, Arabic and Soomaali. The organisation has created a beautiful mural in the center of the town. It is symnbol of how welcoming the town of Clonakilty is.
Thank you Orla for sharing such an incredible story. It is incredible to see the difference a community of support can make to young people coming to our country. As teachers we can bogged down in the day to day but your story reminds us what a difference we can make to young peoples lives.
I think you made an excellent point Sine about the exposure pupils have in Ireland to people such as Conor McGregor and gender based violence. All too often we forget how much of this incidental background chatter (radio or news) that children are taking in. Tackling gender inequality head on is essential in todays current climate where misogny is so rife on social media.
Th sustainable development goal I would like to focus on is SDG 17 partnerships for the goals. I choose to focus on this goal first as it will help foster a sense of global citizenship and help pupils gain an understanding on how we are all connected. This sense of global citizenship is vitally important in ensuring that pupils will actively engage with the other goals. If they do not feel a sense of connection with others they will not fully engage on a head, heart and hand level.
An activity which may help foster a sense of partnership and deepen understanding of how we are all connected would be for pupils to research and create a poster shows the similarities between their lives and the life of a child from another country. For this activity I would take a child centered approach with pupils guiding the learning. Pupils being at the center and leading the learning is an effective tool in ensuring engagement. I have found pupils absolutely love researching and creating posters or a goggle slide. We are fortunate to have a class set of chrome books which enable pupils of all abilities to engage with such activities.It was very interesting reading your post Tara and to read the scenario that took place in your classroom. It is quite sad to see such gender stereotypes ingrained at such a young age and to hear that the girl withdrew from the activity. The stereotypical view of women in STEM starting at such a young age has life long affects on women. I always remember being at a work event for my husband and a colleague of his saying his partner was a civil engineer which was particularly impressive because she was a woman, he was almost incredulous that a woman could even be a civil engineer!
I really like your idea for supporting gender balance in leadership roles. This is a great way to help girls see themselves in leadership roles and for boys to see that girls can leaders.Having been an infant teacher for a number of years in an all girls school I have seen first hand how gender stereotypes are formed at an early age. There was one particular tome that really stuck with me. While setting up our doctor role play area and going through the different roles a number of pupils said we have no doctor, when I asked why they responded saying boys are doctors and we don’t have any boys in our class. While I knew gender stereotypes existed it was quite shocking to see it so ingrained at such a young age. Following this I did a number of lessons on the different roles within the doctor/hospital using pictures of men as nurses and women as doctors followed by a discussion. I was discussing what happened with other staff and one member suggested asking a parent who was a doctor and a woman to come and speak to the class. I was fortunate enough that she did and it made a real impact in challenging the stereotype. While this discussion was had some members of staff a whole school approach should be taken. The process of SSE would lend itself very well to ascertain the gender stereotypes of pupils and to formulate a school plan to tackle this stereotypes.
I really like your suggestion of using real life case studies to promote empathy. I previously took part in the Irish Aid rewards and we used resources from Trocaire to explore the day in the life of a coffee worker. One part of the workers life was walking a kilometre to a well to get water so I took my class on a one kilometre walk at different times throughout the week and it really helped them understand the life of the coffee worker. The case study and living a part of their life created a connection between the pupils and the coffee workers.
While reading The Role of Global Citizens in Today’s World one thing really struck out to me and that was the need to recognise the deep connections between people. I have found in my school setting there can be an us and then approach. The lives of those in the Global South don’t affect us and that we are there to “help”. Module one outlined how we have to move away from this saviour type of mentality and I think fostering a deep connection between students and those in the Global South would greatly help remove this savour type of thinking and to help move to a head, heart and hand approach. I think there would need for a whole school approach but I do think teachers are overloaded so it would be great to incorporate into structures a school may already have in place. In our school we have a student council as part of the UNICEF rights respecting schools and we are beginning to work on the Green School flag of Global Citizenship litter and waste so we could work on global citizenship through these structures we already have in place.