Section 3: Effective education for citizenship in practice
3.3 The professional contribution of teachers and early education practitioners
All teachers and early education practitioners have a role to play in education for citizenship. They may do this through:
- the content of their teaching, and most significantly, the way in which it is taught
- the connections they are able to make between apparently disparate areas of study and young people's social and community experience
- their relationships with young people and readiness to listen to and take account of young people's views.
Their skills and attitudes and the range of learning experiences they are able to create for young people are crucial to the establishment of an open, participatory ethos. In general terms the characteristics required are:
- the ability to help young people to understand the connections between academic work, their social experiences and events in the world outside school
- respect for young people's ideas and views about their learning, and their experiences within and outwith the school, and an ability to build on these in their own teaching
- willingness and ability to create learning experiences that extend young people's social experience, and to help them reflect on their learning
- tolerance of disagreement and the expression of minority views, and the ability to help young people understand and resolve conflict
- skill in sharing responsibility and decision making with young people, and helping them to understand the constraints within which decisions are made
- readiness to work in collaboration and partnership with colleagues within the school community and beyond.
These skills and attitudes will manifest themselves in a rich range of learning experiences for young people. Specific, key learning experiences that contribute to education for citizenship are:
- exploration of social and moral issues and dilemmas through discussions and case studies that require use of evidence and the construction of defensible arguments
- engagement with a variety of social, political, economic and environmental problems and issues in order to develop enterprising and feasible solutions or effective responses
- negotiating, helping to organise and taking part in activities such as projects to improve the school environment, consultation exercises and the development of effective pupil councils
- negotiating, helping to organise and taking part in community-based activities, including voluntary work in the local community
- participation meaningfully in decision making about rules, rewards and sanctions
- contributing actively to the development and operation of policies regarding issues such as bullying or racism
- reflecting and being consulted with real purpose on their experience of formal education and of participation in the school, or early education, community
- using ICT to question and consult with other people and groups, locally, nationally and internationally, about contemporary issues and seek different kinds of evidence to inform their views about these issues.
Together these key learning experiences provide an essential part of a framework for mapping and auditing provision for education for citizenship. Every young person should normally have opportunities for developing capability for citizenship through these kinds of experiences. Ensuring such entitlement may be challenging to various features of the life and experience of an educational establishment - not least the extent to which the establishment is itself a democratic and participatory community.