Citizenship: teachers' comments
Year 9 teacher who took part in the pilot project
The learning outcomes on the lesson plans have come fairly close to the maximum…. we achieved all the goals that were set at the beginning…
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Some of the students had strong views which meant that they were very keen to get actively involved, and the way they did get involved meant that the lesson was very interesting for everyone – teachers, those observing and the students. Even if some views [by the end of the project] remained unchanged, at least it gave them a chance to examine the facts to see if their views actually stood up to the test of looking at evidence rather than just having prejudices.
I think it is good to have the opportunity to try and see things from other peoples points of views, and to develop an empathy of other peoples views which most of the students got to do…. Interestingly, it wasn’t always necessarily the most able who found it easiest to talk from someone else’s point of view. Looking at things from another persons point of view is an important skill which, although they struggled with it, showed that most of them could do it and ignore their own prejudices.
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[We would want to run this kind of project again] because we would want to look at a case study about discrimination and prejudice, and it makes far more sense
to look at one that the students have all pretty much got ideas about rather than something that is perhaps more geographical or historically distant – looking at
something that is ongoing now that you can see in the evening news, where this very issue is being talked about…
