4. Children’s rights: experiencing, getting to know and implementing them

Children should not only know what rights they have, but they should also learn how to appreciate and to use them. To achieve this, school must offer a framework that allows pupils to make a wide range of learning experiences in children’s rights education. In relation to the three main categories of Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC), these may be summed up as follows:

Experiencing children’s rights (learning through): The pupils experience children’s rights as principles that govern the classroom and school community, and so have a direct impact on them. This category has to do with the development of attitudes, values and skills.

Getting to know children’s rights (learning about): The pupils know and understand what rights they have. Critical for this process, in which knowledge and understanding is at the centre, is the targeted and reflectively planned induction by the teacher.

Implementing children’s rights (learning for): The children are encouraged to respect and make use of their rights in class and in school. In this way, they are trained for their future role as in­formed and active citizens in a democratic com­munity (this has to do with participation, both in school and later on in adult life).

Learning in the spirit of children’s and human rights (“through”) and learning how to participate in a democratic community (“for”) is a commitment for the whole school community. All teachers and head teachers must play their part, as must the pupils and their parents. These three dimensions of learning in EDC support and complement each other. Opportunities to initiate and implement the appropriate learning processes are described and demonstrated in this manual. In particular, the as­pect “experiencing children’s rights” implies a careful selection of teaching and learning methods that allow pupils to experience school as a micro-community governed by principles of human and children’s rights. To achieve this, it is vital that chil­dren experience the feeling of being respected as persons, and that their opinions are heard in dis­cussions or decision making. Experiences made by children and young people should be respected and need to be reflected upon, as it is exactly this point that links their real life experience to their knowledge and understanding of human and chil­dren’s rights. For pupils to experience, get to know and implement children’s and human rights – in­deed to take part in a democratic community – in the exemplary framework of a school is, without a doubt, a challenging task for the whole school community. Not only teachers and school man­agement, but also children and their parents must play a part in order to successfully achieve this. A vital component in this process is the principle of participation. In this way, many forms of participa­tion already practiced in classrooms and school communities become part of children’s rights edu­cation.

Various Forms of Participation