‘Choose Respect’: Promoting respect in school using the news
The 2024 Anti-Bullying Week theme is ‘Choose Respect’, and promoting respect can be an integral part of school life for many. Showing children values of empathy and compassion in action, and facilitating productive interactions in school, can boost pupils’ knowledge and demonstration of respectful thoughts and behaviour.
In honour of Anti-Bullying Week, this blog explores the ways in which teaching the news can help you encourage respect within your school community.
How does teaching the news build respect?
Global awareness and curiosity
Regularly exploring news stories introduces children to a variety of perspectives, experiences and situations around the world. Encouraging children to be curious, ask questions and reflect on news events can help build their interest and inquisitiveness for current affairs and real world events. In return, news exploration can enable children to become active citizens, who are passionate about and respect the world around them.
Empathy and understanding
Acquiring global awareness (as mentioned above) ultimately builds children’s empathy and understanding of others. Knowing about situations, issues and events impacting people around the world introduces children to a diverse spectrum of experiences, different from their own. This can broaden children’s view of the world, and crucially build their respect, as they are receptive to, and understanding of, different lives, perspectives and situations.
Cultural capital
Using the news as a medium for global exploration helps children gain cultural capital. When navigating current stories, they may encounter or learn more about real people, places, cultures, lifestyles, ideas, professions, innovations, religions and ways of life from around the world. Doing so can enhance children’s respect for the world around them, as they learn to value inclusivity and look outward to others’ stories.
Respectful discussion and debate
The news can serve as an engaging talking point within school. As educators, we can facilitate a safe, respectful environment for discussion. Think about how collectively you can determine rules or parameters from productive conversation, such as no talking over one another, show active listening, respect others’ opinions. When exploring current affairs, children can respectfully share their own opinion on news topics, and be reminded that everyone has different perspectives and experiences which may inform a variety of opinions.
Emotional maturity
Throughout news-based discussions, children can reflect on and determine their own responses to the news whilst encountering others’ emotional responses. In doing so, they can work on their emotion literacy skills; they can develop their emotional understanding, know what it means to feel an emotion, how to articulate emotions, and be reminded that emotions manifest differently for everyone and can change overtime. Current affairs can make for an engaging medium for children to navigate and build emotional maturity.
