DEMOCRACY AND CITIZENSHIP
Our students have made lot of activities on the topic of Democracy and Citizenship. 6th grade pupils have chosen their class: ‘The Parliament’. As a warm up activity in order to introduce the topic ‘We need to organise ourselves’ they carried on a whole class activity in which it was necessary to accomplish an objective within a limited time frame. They had a lot of materials and the task was to create a display within 1 hour with the involvement of the 26 pupils in the class.
This activity is the starting point of some aspects of our society that they will work on later on. For instance, the need of a certain level of organisation in our lives: in our family, at school, in the neighbourhood, in the village, city or country in order to avoid chaos. Also, they need a leader, hierarchies…the sort of structures that organise a society and at this point we will present different government organisations.
Images from different parliaments around the world will be collected and displayed. Films and research works about different historical situations in which democracy has not been respected will also be a focus of our work.
This activity is the starting point of some aspects of our society that they will work on later on. For instance, the need of a certain level of organisation in our lives: in our family, at school, in the neighbourhood, in the village, city or country in order to avoid chaos. Also, they need a leader, hierarchies…the sort of structures that organise a society and at this point we will present different government organisations.
Images from different parliaments around the world will be collected and displayed. Films and research works about different historical situations in which democracy has not been respected will also be a focus of our work.
We have visited the Catalan Parliament participating in an activity acting as deputies. The objective of this visit is to make students realise that they are citizens of a country and of a region that is Catalonia. As citizens there is an institution which represents them, which cares for their wellbeing, and they have the right and ought to participate in its constitution. This institution is the Generalitat.
Creating a parallelism between the Generalitat, their school and their homes, students must know its internal organisation and the tasks that are carried there.
The other fundamental concept that will be observed is Democracy, meaning the freedom to participate in the future of the community through the elections.
Adding to the democratic habits that the pupils have acquired at school, it has been a great experience to participate in an activity where the students have had the opportunity to experience politics at first hand. For the Parliament visit we have created 4 imaginary political parties and their political campaign. Logos, slogans, political programs, speeches and specific political vocabulary have been carried on in class prior to the visit. It has been hard work but they have enjoyed it and learnt a lot about politics and politicians.
When we talk about citizenship we talk about the rights we have in society , but also the values we should have : respect, tolerance, equality ...
All the students of the school have been working in order to underestand and implement these values. We have made draws, we have seen stories and tales, performance and role playing.
We have participated in activities to be aware of the importance of values: grandparents have come to the school to explain stories, and we went to an old people residence to share moments with them.
We also want to include in citizenship other values related with animals and nature. For this reason, we have been researching endangered animals . We wanted to relate this issue not only with the enviroment, related with citizenship and values too. We have seen how consumerism and the lack of values of the people can have consequences in the nature and animals.
Endangered animals
Related with democracy, we proposed to our kindergarten students the endangered animals topic. They started to look for information with the families, and they voted a endangered animal in each class.
3 years old students are: giraffes, penguins and pandas. 4 years old students:whales and lynx. 5 years old students:tigers and koalas.
5th grade students have been working endangered animals too. In English class they prepared all the information.
Endangered animals
Related with democracy, we proposed to our kindergarten students the endangered animals topic. They started to look for information with the families, and they voted a endangered animal in each class.
3 years old students are: giraffes, penguins and pandas. 4 years old students:whales and lynx. 5 years old students:tigers and koalas.
5th grade students have been working endangered animals too. In English class they prepared all the information.