010 : safe & sound - social responsibility

image by carf

The teaching course I am taking requires me to form a small group and give a small talk/microteaching skit on one of several given topics. To make a long story short, in the end we chose Social Responsibility as our topic.

Social Responsibility, in the most basic sense, makes the students the governor of their own behavior, and reminding them of it. The teachers and school admin are basically the models, 'reminders' and advocators of good behavior, and are also a huge chunk of Social Responsibility as well.

An episode of implementation of this is like thus:

1. Class rules are negotiated between T & Ss within a certain boundary (eg. school rules, legal laws etc are practised), and rules must include both T & Ss (eg. T & Ss must both be professional and respectful at all times).
   
   
2. It is important for Ts & school admin to explain WHY the rules are such. In essense, the focus of social responsibility is that everyone has rights, and if one person misbehaves (eg. steal, insult, bully), they are infringing on someone else's right. This refers to the Human Rights Act section 12 (I think?) where it says that children have the right to learn in a safe & comfortable learning environment.
   
   
3. When T/S fails to obey a rule, it means that they have willingly chosen to break it. Consequence will follow (if they continue) in a gradual state (reminded, moved to a different seat/position, detention/counselling, see the principal, call the parents/salary reduction, etc).

With this, Social Responsibility aims to make students know & feel that living in a society means independence AND interdependence. It also aims to ensure students to be more open-minded & mature when making decisions, because they will understand that decisions equal to implications (towards the self & others).

I think this is a crucial thing to teach & practise, particularly in the Malaysian classroom. Usually Ss are forced to follow the rules without being given the explanation of the rules and why they should be followed. Plus, as far as my education in the past has led to me to believe, the punishment system is only a consequence of rule-breaking rather than that of choice.

Please visit these for more info (and better clarification!):

[ link : esrnational.org ]
[ link : @bced.gov.bc.ca ]
[ link : @sfu.ca ]

May we all be socially responsible and respectful beings. Amin.