Exploring the concerns, fears and barriers to teaching children’s rights in elementary and secondary schools in Canada

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Exploring the Struggles of Responsive Primary/Secondary Educators

Proposal

This presentation addresses the importance of child rights education (CRE) for children and educators in elementary and secondary schools. Based on experiences from the field and research, the presenter will address the concerns, fears, and barriers that some teachers expressed about teaching children’s rights, followed by an exploration of what CRE is, how it can be taught, and its importance to children, their legal guardians, teachers/educators and school staff. CRE is not simply a lesson about rights but an overall approach to teaching and learning that entails a children’s rights lens to education, and teaching and learning about the provisions and principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as an international text and domestic laws to empower children/learners to take action (apply what they have learned into practice in their day-to-day lives – at home, at school, in the community and, more broadly, at the national and global levels). CRE is learning about rights, learning through rights (using rights as an organizing principle to transform the culture of learning) and learning for rights (taking action to realize rights) (UNICEF, 2014, p. 6). A core element of CRE is for children to be active participants in their learning journey and to be involved in the decision-making processes and policies on issues that impact them and the world they live in. For teachers/educators to transfer this knowledge, it is essential that they are empowered and equipped with the appropriate tools and skills. They need to receive training on children’s international and domestic rights as well as their rights as teachers/educators to be able understand, analyze, and learn how rights can be applied in the real world. This process of knowledge transfer can help educators and learners ensure that children’s rights are lived (experienced) and living (contextualized and adapted to present and emerging needs), leading to equitable practices, and fostering understanding, respect, and inclusion in and beyond the classroom walls. The presenter will address how they use creative drama and participatory action research as pedagogical approaches in transferring knowledge and opening the path for creative and collaborative practices and forms of inquiry in CRE.

Author

• Hala Mreiwed, King's University College at Western