Learning and Changes in the Classroom

Within the area of Protection, some country reports give examples of how problems like corporal punishment, truancy, drop-outs due to pregnancies, bullying and sexual abuse have decreased substantially. This could be seen as a result of increased attention to the problems and development of new methods to handle the problems. Working together with children themselves in a new way is another factor of importance for the success. But resistance could still exist among parents and in the community where cor-poral punishment is encouraged. It takes time to sensitise parents on children’s rights.

The situation for girls has in many cases received particular attention in the classroom (e.g.in mathematics and science) or access to school in connection with pregnancy or work at home.

Provision

The country reports show that many different measures have been taken by adults to fulfill children’s basic needs like providing meals in schools, water and sanitation facilities, school uniforms, transport and hostels as well as access to health care for chil-dren with disabilities. In other cases chilchil-dren themselves have contributed to provision through for example production of teaching and learning material. The very impor-tance of paying attention to basic needs is exemplified in one of the reports telling us that children in some instances stay at school the whole day without a meal. In extreme cases you could also find hungry teachers teaching hungry learners.

The experience above shows that it is possible to use the abstract and general formu-lations in the articles of CRC as tools for change.

stu-pedagogy in classrooms and schools. Open meeting places in school compounds for school administration, teachers and students are one example of building social relations to try to reduce the social gap between them.

A gender sensitive approach

By introducing the bottom up approach, children’s needs have been in focus and caused increased self-esteem among girls. Several change projects have focused on changing the normative agenda for teaching and learning material, participation and voices heard, to a gender sensitive approach by increasing teaching and learning material which gives priority to student-centred activities and uses more cooperative activities to promote the participation of girls. By recognising the domestic workload that used to be cultur-ally given to girls, the work is now being shared by both girls and boys. By encouraging participation of girls learning natural science subjects and by improving science books to consider female gender in professionalism, the polyphonic classroom is created. By daring to raise questions about sexual health and trying to clarify doubts, myths, be-liefs and misconceptions, the dropout rate due to pregnancy has been reduced in some of the schools involved in the programme. One example is a change project that has worked on constructing a girls’ hostel in boarding schools to create a safer culture for both boys and girls.

A democratic approach

Through a simple suggestion box in a school or in a classroom, many democratic ideas have started to grow. The next step can be to enable participation in formulating school rules and regulations, and then to create a forum for new ideas. All countries report about class councils, school councils and some even on district councils, children’s par-liament and leadership training. Some teacher training centres participating in the pro-gramme have introduced student councils as a way to keep up with the development of democracy in schools, but also to show that the teacher trainees have understood CRC and can implement it in their future classrooms. This important capacity building is one clue to understanding the change of roles in school settings. Children are given opportunities to be heard in all matters affecting them, regardless of their age and maturity level. Some schools arrange class meetings where the top down approach is banned; students are allowed to discuss among themselves any issues that they think are important and necessary, how to solve problems, how to fulfill their duties, how to solve difficulties in their daily life and relationship with their families. Several country reports shows that the number of complaints from students to the school management has been reduced.

A participatory approach

Many stress the importance of teacher development and allowance of critical think-ing, collaborative activities and pedagogical strategies to achieve democratic classrooms.

Some schools are sharing best practices and have formulated a participatory plan for teachers, developed teaching guidelines and conducted training for teachers to im-prove educational approaches. There is a need for discussions among teachers on how to change, how to include CRC and how to use a participatory approach. In-service training discussions about best practices allow the participants to include different as-pects and problems by implementing Child Rights. One change project in the pro-gramme has done action research to identify the educational gap and conduct training for teachers on educational approach and monitoring. At some universities, the CRC approach has spread from being used in some courses at certain departments to other departments including different subjects. Smart classrooms with internet connectivity are one way to increase participation and in line with designing tools to assess students’

perception of participation.

A caring and protective approach

By defining school dropouts, stigmatisation, marginalisation and bullying, many schools involved in the programme have established support systems to provide coun-selling to students who are discriminated, marginalised and bullied and to encourage teachers to adopt positive discipline in classrooms. Some schools have started anti-bul-lying committees, which deal with understanding the effects of bulanti-bul-lying in schools.

Many stress the importance of defining factors that contribute to low enrolment and a high dropout rate. Corporal punishment has been reduced and gradually replaced by guidance and counselling sessions. We can see and read from the country reports how the teacher trainers in different teacher training centres have changed their attitudes towards the teacher trainees and stopped using corporal punishment. As a result teacher trainees become more outspoken on school matters and understand the importance of a bully- and abuse-free school. From countries with a high rate of violence in society, school behaviour codes have been set to include violence and bullying as misbehaviour with disciplinary consequences and sanctions for the purpose of reducing physical and mental punishment at the school.

Summing up

As a result of the programme, curricula at primary and secondary level as well as teacher training level have included CRC and some teacher training centres are running courses on CRC. Material has been developed to suit the needs of the students, adjusted to their specific learning contexts or designed to address problems related to children’s rights. More girls are active in the learning area, in peer teaching and school leadership.

The design of extra co-curriculum activities highlights a new view upon a child’s school day. The need to rest, the need for food, to play and to do out-of-school activities is important for a student who is coping with lessons, homework and tests. A big chal-lenge is to develop meaningful and sustainable participation. The establishment of class

learning processes are teacher attrition and children dropping out due to poverty and other causes. Many education systems are heavily exam-oriented and therefore find the rights-based approach to teaching time consuming. Several reports conclude that support, motivation and monitoring are the tools to use to achieve sustainability and improve educational quality and impact.