What do they teach? - Social Studies at WHS
Rachel, Sophie, Lydia, Imogen, Sophie, Leigh-ana and Rebekah (absent: Jae) with the toiletries they collected.
River City Press is doing a series on what they teach at Secondary School. For this issue we spoke with Grant Collie, Studies Studies teacher at Whanganui High School and his students.
Grant Collie’s year 10 Social Studies class have been doing an NCEA Level 1 Social Studies internal worth four credits. It is to ‘Report on personal involvement in a social justice and human rights action.’
The class split up into groups, chose a cause, researched it, then created and carried out an action plan. Grant was there to provide advice but the students had to make all the contacts. The range of causes included Women’s Refuge, Amnesty International, Domestic Violence and the plight of refugees.
Actually three groups chose Women’s Refuge and they decided to join together. The girls, (it was all girls in the group), told RCP that they chose this cause because “it meant something to us, we feel strongly about women’s rights.”
After consulting the Refuge website and gathering information from social media, they interviewed the local Women’s Refuge staffers and learnt about the different campaigns. The decision was to focus on collecting toiletries and they appealed to their school mates at year 9 and year 10 assemblies to contribute, especially the little bottles that we pick up from hotels and motels. They received 324 items covering a wide range of toiletries.
The school gave them permission to do a public collection in Victoria Ave and they raised $522 and received a “very positive response” from the public. The toiletry bags have been handed over and the girls said “We really couldn’t have chosen a better local organisation and it was an immense pleasure to help with such a worthy cause.”
Another group got involved in an Amnesty International, 'Free Shawkan' campaign (against the Death Penalty). They collected 73 names for the petition and raised awareness of the issues at the school and using their contacts also at “Brunswick Primary School and at Adrian Barnes Electricians”. Another group also chose Amnesty International, focusing on forced marriages in Bukino Faso. Grant advises that a signed banner is being sent to Parliament
The group which chose the plight of refugees also used their contacts with connections to St Andrews Presbyterian Church. They created a well designed Red Cross (in the form of a cross in red) poster complete with information and a QR code.
The group focusing on domestic violence created a separate website called DAISY – for Domestic Abuse in Society’s Youth. The website links it to other websites and aims to help victims go to the most appropriate website for them. They carried out search reviews to find the most reliable.
(courtesy of River City Press 25/8/16)