Tolerance and Empathy in Today’s Classroom
Building positive relationships within the Citizenship curriculum for 0 to 14 year olds
Andrew Hammond
Paul Chapman Publishing 2006
Reviewer: Belle Wallace, Director, TASC International
The book is a collection of ideas for discussion and interactive workshops that revolve around challenges in the area of Citizenship. The book provides a range of contexts, scenarios and characters, and pupils are invited to discuss, to meet challenges, to negotiate and then justify acceptable solutions. Throughout the activities, pupils are required to demonstrate empathy, tolerance and cooperation, and the scenarios can be converted to drama and role-play. After much discussion and exploration of issues, it is easy to see the transfer of skills into speaking and listening, and targeted and meaningful writing. The accompanying CD Rom has photocopiable materials which are an enormous help to busy teachers.
The writer presents a credo for pupils to discuss:
- Everyone has a voice that should be heard.
- Every idea deserves consideration.
- An open mind is better than a strong one.
- Diversity, when tolerated is a strength.
- No-one knows everything but together we know a lot.
- Pulling together is better than pulling apart. (P5.)
The theme throughout the activities is that pupils learn about democracy by practising democracy, and all the activities promote democratic discourse and negotiated outcomes. This is a useful text for teachers in that it expands horizons of possibilities, gives full guidance for implementing the ideas and provides a rich source of hands-on materials.
GEI Vol 22 No 1
