Rights and Respect in the classroom
Aim: To encourage children to think about rights in the classroom and identify behaviour that respects and disrespects human rights (see also the introduction to the UNCRC exercise).
Time: 40 minutes.
Age:6+.
What you need:
•Paper and pencil (per child);
•flipchart or whiteboard;
•Class Charter of Rights (see Resource Sheet)
•Class Charter of Respect(see Resource Sheet)
What to do
Explain that everyone at school has the right to learn, be safe and be happy. It is also up to everyone to makesure that we are not behaving in a way that disrespectsthe rights of others.
Rights
Ask the pupils what can be done in their classroom to make sure that everyone is enjoying their right to:
•be safe;
•be happy;
•learn.
Ask them to work on their own to write up three thingsthat will help these rights, e.g.:
•The right to be SAFE – dangerous things to be put away
•The right to be HAPPY – to be treated kindly
•The right to LEARN – enough books and paper
Next, in pairs, children should pool their ideas and agreeon the best three between them. Now hold a classdiscussion and draw up a class list of up to ten items onthe board or flipchart that all agree on. This is their ClassCharter of Rights.
Show and discuss the sample Class Charter of Rights(resource sheet)from a school in Hampshire. Whatdo they think of their ideas? Would they add or changeanything? Have they thought about everyone who usesthis classroom, e.g. teachers, other classes, cleaners?
Respect
Explain that everyone in school has the right to learnand be safe and happy. But if that is a right for us,then it is a right for everyone else too. Each of us has to respect the rights of others. Weneed to ensure that by enjoying our rights we are notdisrespecting the rights of other people.
Discussion
As a class, discuss some of the following:
•Can you think of some examples of peopledisrespecting other people’s human rights? Why dosome people behave that way?
•How can we avoid behaving unfairly and disrespectingthe rights of others?
•Are there differences in rights forteachers and other adults?
•How does it feel to have your rights disrespected byothers?
Now, ask the class to develop a Class Charter ofRespect to reflect how they are going to achieve their Charter of Rights. For example:
Right How you will achieve that right
to be listened to and given theto listen to and respect each other’s views opportunity to express our opinions and opinions
Extension/homework
• In groups, children can make lists of rights andrespects in the playground, at home or in thecommunity.
Teachers notes:
•Many people think that rights are dependentonresponsibilities. This is inaccurate and a common misunderstanding. Children’s rights, like all human rights, are unconditional. This means there are no conditions attached to rights. Rights can never be a reward for the fulfilment of a responsibility and they can never be taken away because a ‘responsibility’ hasn’t been met.
Children’s rights are also universal, so both adults and children should be encouraged to respect rights but this does not mean that a child’s rights are dependent on them respecting the rights of others.
•For further information,common misconceptions about children’s rights see UNICEF’s advice: ‘Myths and misconceptions about the convention on the rights of the child’ (UNCRC).
Source: Adapted fromOur World Our Rights, Amnesty International
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