Gamble on the Mekong - Investigative Journalist comes to ISPP

Today ISPP was visited by Tom Fawthrop, a major Southeast Asian journalist.

He came to screen part of his recent documentary The Great Gamble on the Mekong and to speak with the Grade 4 and Grade 8-10 students about the Mekong River and the effects of dam projects on people and the environment.

Tom Fawthrop is a world renowned investigative reporter and has written for some famous newspapers around the world. He was very passionate in protecting the Mekong River.

Many thanks to Tom for coming and educating students on such an important topic for the region and to Jon Banules for organising getting Tom into school.

 

Peace Mottos

This week the class have been finishing off their personal peace mottos.

 How they wish to live their lives. They had to research and create their own personal motto.

Here they are. They are all very cool and it would be great if the whole world can live by some of these. What do you think?

Peace and Conflict

This week the class have been busy looking at different conflicts that  affect the world and society we live in.


They are busy looking into issues with the environment, gender, racial and even human right conflict.






They have also been designing their own motto that they think we should all live by.



Some of these designs have been very cool and once finished will share some examples.

Peace and Conflict Guest Speaker

Today we had Mr Barry come and talk to the Grade 4 children about "Peace and Conflict" and how as the director of the school he has had to deal with conflict.

One of his key points he told the children was having the ability to listen to other people, listening to both sides of any conflict.


That it is not possible to keep everyone happy and to come to a resolution that everyone is happy about, but listening and talking is the key.


The children asked him some great questions.


Mr Barry told the children that if they see someone in the playground that is alone or upset then they should see if the person is okay and ask them to come and play with them.

Peace and Conflict guest speaker

On Thursday we were lucky enough to have the wonderful Karen Skelly from Secondary school come and talk to the grade 4 children about conflict resolution.

She really got into character and made the children really think about how the treat people.


She used the example of Dr Suess "The Sneetches" where one group of sneetches treat another group unfairly because of the way they look.



She did a great role play with us where she divided the class into two random group were the different groups were treated differently because of the stars she gave them to wear.
Some amazing reflection afterwards.


See below some of the wonderful things the children said.

Social experiment / Sneetches video / story

If you weren’t wearing a coloured dot how did you feel about the students who were wearing a coloured dot?

• Envy, jealousy, sadness, anger
• Really jealous and sad. I was annoyed.
• It felt it was not fair - why do they get special things.
• We wondered why it was not equal. We were embarrassed because we were sitting on the floor.
• We felt different.
• 
  

  

  We felt humility.
• We thought it was unfair and thought people were being mean.

If you were wearing a coloured dot how did you feel?

• Once I had the dot and was sitting in the chair I felt a lot better. i felt special.
• I felt pride, freedom - I could speak, have fun.
• I was excited and interested.
• 
  I was happy
• I felt I was well treated, strong and powerful.
• I had access to privilege.
• I felt happy, lucky
• I felt bad for the other people
• I felt like I had more access to all the good things
• I felt special.

What feelings did you have during the activity?

• curious, nervous, wondering
• I felt it was unfair and I got bored when I was on the floor
• I felt happy when I had a dot and sad when i did not have a dot
• I was confused - why did they get a dot?
• I was wondering why we were being unfair
• divided
• jealousy, anger, sadness and happiness

What did you learn from the activity and the video?

• To be fair even though we are all different
• we have to be respectful
• Change what we do not who we are
• Everyone should be equal - no matter skin color, wealth
• We can all be special and still be different
• To treat people fairly
• Include everyone and treat all fairly.
• We have to think about how the other feel
• We can all change what we do to be more equal, more fair
• It does not matter what you look like you can still be equal
• We felt conflicted when we did not have stars and more peaceful when we had a star

Actions you will take to help everyone feel like they belong?

• I will include everyone when I play a game
• I will be caring to everyone
• I will treat everyone equally
• I will help my mother
• Say hello / good morning to everyone
• I will be open minded when listening to other students
• Smile more
• 
  Try to learn words in other people’s languages
• I will not take revenge or be selfish
• I will be friendly to everyone and make everyone feel special - no matter what they look like
• Share always
• Accept everybody
• If I see see someone on their own in the playground I will ask them if they want to play with us.
• I will think about how other people are feeling and try to make them feel at home, comfortable.

Peace and Conflict UOI

This week saw the end of one unit of inquiry and the introduction of our new unit.

This unit is called Peace and conflict with the central idea being "The actions and attitudes of individuals and communities create peace or conflict".





The class were put into pairs and were asked to pull apart the central idea and rewrite it in their own words.


The groups worked really hard and had some good discussion over what "conflict" is.... the consensus being that conflict comes in different forms and affects us in various ways individually and as a community of people.