By Micheal Garvey and Ruth Cowley,This year in our school both fifth classes took part in the Show Racism the Red Card project. The show racism the red card pack was a great resource to use in the classroom.Within our schools religious programme – Learn Together, we place a huge emphasis on the causes and effects of racism and the importance of our human rights, both in Ireland and in other countries around the world.As part of our ethos we encourage the importance of promoting anti- racism in our school, community and country. As a result the students had a lot of background information regarding this topic and various figures who have played a major role in the fight against racism, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.
The pack allowed and encouraged the children to examine and explore racism within the world of sport. When watching the video the children were amazed to see footage from soccer matches (they have seen) and listen to players who they admire and respect speaking about the effect of racism on them and their fellow players.The lessons and the creative competition was an excellent stimulus for the children to express their views on racism in both Ireland and the rest of the world. As teachers, we felt that the pack was a very easy to use resource. It incorporated many lessons and exercises which embraced various aspects of the curriculum, this aided cohesive and integrated classroom planning.We decided as teachers that we would encourage the children to create their own individual projects to promote the message ‘show racism the red card’. Altogether there were 50 children were involved. Some of the children work in groups of two and three while the rest worked on individual projects.The children in our classes particularly enjoy art as a subject so the majority decided to create posters. The children were given both time at home and in school to create their posters, videos and written work and they really enjoyed working on these projects. When the projects were completed the children were very excited and interested to see what their classmates had created. This project was very well done and organised and we really enjoyed working on it.
Report from Donabate/ Portrane Educate Together National School
By Micheal Garvey and Ruth Cowley,This year in our school both fifth classes took part in the Show Racism the Red Card project. The show racism the red card pack was a great resource to use in the classroom.Within our schools religious programme – Learn Together, we place a huge emphasis on the causes and effects of racism and the importance of our human rights, both in Ireland and in other countries around the world.As part of our ethos we encourage the importance of promoting anti- racism in our school, community and country. As a result the students had a lot of background information regarding this topic and various figures who have played a major role in the fight against racism, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.
The pack allowed and encouraged the children to examine and explore racism within the world of sport. When watching the video the children were amazed to see footage from soccer matches (they have seen) and listen to players who they admire and respect speaking about the effect of racism on them and their fellow players.The lessons and the creative competition was an excellent stimulus for the children to express their views on racism in both Ireland and the rest of the world. As teachers, we felt that the pack was a very easy to use resource. It incorporated many lessons and exercises which embraced various aspects of the curriculum, this aided cohesive and integrated classroom planning.We decided as teachers that we would encourage the children to create their own individual projects to promote the message ‘show racism the red card’. Altogether there were 50 children were involved. Some of the children work in groups of two and three while the rest worked on individual projects.The children in our classes particularly enjoy art as a subject so the majority decided to create posters. The children were given both time at home and in school to create their posters, videos and written work and they really enjoyed working on these projects. When the projects were completed the children were very excited and interested to see what their classmates had created. This project was very well done and organised and we really enjoyed working on it.