Members are dedicated in their care and commitment to students. They treat students equitably and with respect and are sensitive to factors that influence individual student learning. Members facilitate the development of students as contributing citizens of Canadian society.
This links with the CGE (Catholic Graduate Expectation) #7 - A Responsible Citizen who: (e) witnesses Catholic social teaching by promoting equality, democracy and solidarity for a just, peaceful and compassionate society.
Below, you will find a task relating to helping children understand morality. This task was included in this section because we need to teach our children about equality, democracy and solidarity. This task helps the learner to really scrutinize these ideas with knowledge and practical learning.
Moral
Decisions Task
Social Justice
Issue: Welcoming
refugees/foreigners into our classroom/school - More
and more children are arriving at our school from other countries. For
the younger grades (primary) the children don’t seem to notice and accept the
children as they should be - simply children. However in some of the older
classes (junior), there are sometimes small comments made or chatter between students
that foreigners are coming into their country and they don’t like this mix of
cultures, showing no empathy or understanding for why these children have come
to our country and how they deserve the same respect as everyone else.  |
| credit: Blog CAFOD |
Subject: Art
Lesson: Art Appreciation
Expectation:
D2.1 - Reflecting, Responding, and Analysing: interpret a variety of art
works and identify the feelings, issues, themes, and social concerns that they
convey
Decision-Making
Model:
See: When a newcomer to the
class or school starts are all the children welcoming? Does everyone make an
effort to say hello and include the new student? Is all the talk surrounding
the new pupil positive? If all of the answers are yes, then this is great but
if there are any negative comments made or examples of behaviours seen that are
not acceptable (e.g pushing in line in front of new pupils, not assisting them,
comments made towards them like, “Go back to your own country”) then move onto
the next step: judge. This might be observations made over after a few weeks or
even months of arrival of the newcomer.
This
is where the task would come in in order to open the students’ eyes to the social
justice issue of refugees.
TASK –
 |
| Credit: www.tracesproject.org |
2) Give each group of children a large piece of paper and one colour of marker. Have them think about some
of the following prompt questions (display on IWB): What does the art depict? Do you think the
art has a particular message and if so what is it? How does the art make you feel? What emotions does it trigger in you? Does
the art raise any questions for you? If you could meet the artist, what might
you want to ask her about her art?
3) Give the class a basic profile of the artist with photograph, date she
came to country (1980) and which country she came from (Vietnam). Ask the children
to swap markers with another group and with the second colour add different
prompt questions for them to answer on their sheets: Does this additional
information help them to understand anything further about the art. Does it create any new questions? Do you want to know more about her
background? If so, what? How do you
think this might help us to better understand the art they are looking at?
4) Using the brilliant website about refugees www.tracesproject.org, have the children
research the life story of Hong Dam, who is a refugee that left her country out
of necessity.
5) Discuss the findings as a class.
Bring into the discussion how her life in Vietnam was not like the life
of children in our country and how much she has brought to our country: we are
better off for having people like her because they bring with them so much.
6) Now is the time to bring it back to the idea of refugees in our
school. How we must show compassion,
kindness, understanding and most importantly acceptance to them. Bring up
incidents that have both shown these virtues and done the opposite.
Judge: Come up with two options
for resolving the issue.
Option 1 – When a newcomer first arrives in
class (perhaps after they feel settled) have him or her work with a couple of
other children on sharing their story as a refugee. Why have to they come to this country? Why
did they leave their own? How did they
feel? Also include what makes these
people great: do they have any special talents
like dancing, singing, art or even being a good friend. Welcome these talents and characteristics
about the child. This could be a problem because the
child may be too afraid to present in front of the class. The child may speak little or no English.
Option 2 – Before the arrival of the refugee,
have the class research the country that he or she is coming from (as soon as
the teacher is made aware of the new arrival).
Have the children prepare welcome pictures/presentations/homemade gifts
to welcome the new child. Prior understanding may assist in solving this
problem. This could be a problem because sometimes
schools/teachers are given very little notice about newcomers. In addition, the curriculum is so jam-packed
with work to cover that this is an additional piece of work needed to be done.
Pray about making the proper choice.
Galatians 6:2-3 Share
each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you
think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You
are not that important.
Act: Choose option 2 because the problem lies with
children not having empathy for the others and the situation that they came
from. Thus finding out about the problem
before they arrive might help the rest of the class to empathize with the
newcomer.
Evaluate: Did we do anything bad in our action plan? No. We
enhanced our knowledge.
Did we
follow the Golden Rule? Yes, learned about how children from the newcomers’
country may have struggled and why.
Did we
show real concern for others? Yes. We took an interest in the lives of others.
Conclusion: Option 2 is the moral thing to do.
Child Development Analysis
Children between 10-12 year olds have Emotional/Social Development of
• Increased ability to interact with peers
• Increased ability to engage in competition
• Developing and testing values and beliefs that will guide present and
future behaviours
• Have a strong group identity; increasingly defines self through peers
• Acquiring a sense of accomplishment based upon the achievement of
greater physical strength and self-control
• Defines self-concept in part by success in school
According to the above developmental expectations, the task should work
fine because they are developing and testing their values and beliefs, one of
which should be compassion towards others.
Also, they are keen to have a strong group identity and thus if their
group identity encompasses newcomers to the country then in the future there
will potentially less problems.
In addition, youth at this age intellectually and cognitively learn to
extend their way of thinking beyond their personal experiences and knowledge
and start to view the world outside of an absolute black-white/right-wrong
perspective. They thus have the ability
to look beyond their classroom walls.
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic
Church
132. Respect for human dignity - A just society
can become a reality only when it is based on the respect of the transcendent
dignity of the human person. This tell us that
respecting everyone is important.
433. The international community and values - The
centrality of the human person and the natural inclination of persons and
peoples to establish relationships among themselves are the fundamental
elements for building a true international community, the ordering of which
must aim at guaranteeing the effective universal common good. This
tells us that building a relationship with our peers is needed if we want our
classroom and school to be a good one.
505. The duty to protect the
innocent. The principle of humanity
inscribed in the conscience of every person and all peoples includes the
obligation to protect civil populations from the effects of war. This means it is our responsibility to help protect this
category of war victims called refugees by giving them a safe place to be
educated.
(Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church)
Virtues
Through this activity,
the students will develop the virtue of compassion, understanding and empathy.
It will also bring up the idea of harmony (unity) in our society.
Prayer
Love
your neighbour
Jesus,
friend and brother,
You
know what it is like
To be
hungry and thirsty.
You
know the plight of the
Stranger
who is made unwelcome.
You
know the suffering of all
Who
have lost everything.
We
pray that by welcoming
The
asylum seeker we may show
Love
for our neighbour and
Draw
closer to you.
Amen.
Tony
Singleton/CAFOD
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