classroom workshop: a perfect summer day

The six activities in the following workshop are meant to introduce the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in an organic way.  Beginning with a childhood memory of a perfect summer day, students will transform their memories into childhood essentials.  These essential elements will then be used help construct rights for all children.  The workshop can be easily used within a single class period or lengthened if time allows.

The workshop is intended for students who not familiar with the CRC.  Before the 5th activity the facilitator should hand out a “reader friendly” version of the CRC whereby each article is summarized down to a line or two.  The Convention is meant to be a surprise as students realize that their childhood essentials which they will transform into guidelines will closely match many of the CRC articles. 

After the six steps, the facilitator should point out that the students helped construct the Convention.  They now symbolically own the CRC in certain respects because the standards are intimately related to their childhood experiences.  The students should leave the workshop with an intuitive understanding of the CRC and they should begin to look at children and the world from the perspective of human rights. 

Afterwards, the students should watch the multi-media slide show which should evoke more images of childhood.  Also enclosed on the site is additional supportive material, information on the history of the CRC, background on how this workshop was composed, and an actual application of the workshop with students.

photo credit: Jean Gaumy / MAGNUM PHOTOS