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Day Two: Poverty and education

> Morning session
> Afternoon session

Morning session: Poverty and education

Key focus: What are some of the problems associated with being poor? This day has particular emphasis on poverty and education.

Activities
> Introducing goals (30 min)
> Living on a dollar (60p) a day (30 min)
> Education river (20–30 min)
> Why is school important? (20–30 min)
> Why can’t some children go to school? (20–30 min)

Background information for teachers

Piers Blaikie refers to the daily and unexceptional tragedy of deaths through ‘natural’ causes by which he means people dying from the effects of poverty. Every 30 seconds, an African child dies of malaria. Every 3.6 seconds, someone dies of starvation. Poverty is a disaster but it is not thought of in the same way as events such as the tsunami because it is happening continuously. The UK media has covered development and poverty issues extensively after the tsunami, but as Jon Snow implies, it isn’t newsworthy because it’s commonplace.

From Global Express: Tsunami – A world changing event published by Manchester Development Education Project and Oxfam, January 2005

The eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are international targets for reducing global poverty and so today’s activities begin by introducing them. For further background information about the MDGs, see ‘The Millennium Development Goals: background information’ and United Nations Millennium Development Goals (pop up window)

Other activities for this day will look at what it may be like to live on under $1 a day and why it is that many children do not have access to education because of poverty.

Activity 1: Introducing goals (30 min)

You will need
> Background information on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to refer to
> Poster 1: all MDGs - front pics (optional) (115KB pdf)

Aims
To help pupils understand the concept of goal-setting and to encourage them to consider setting some important goals for themselves.
To teach pupils what the Millennium Development Goals are.

Ask pupils to call out what they think of when they hear the word ‘goal’. They will probably say ‘football’! Encourage them to think what it means to score a goal – that it is something the players are trying to achieve; this is what they’ve set out to do.

Ask the pupils to think of personal goals they may have. They could do this individually or in small groups. Help them by suggesting they look at different aspects of their lives, e.g. school, family, friends, sport and hobbies.

Ask them to prepare a ‘charter’ of their goals. They could then set a time limit on these. By when should they be achieved? Ask them to draw a time line to illustrate this. They should add some detail about how they will achieve their goals. What steps will they take towards them and when?

Explain what the MDGs are, how they came about and that the governments of the world have pledged to achieve all the goals by 2015. Pupils could copy them down and keep them with their personal charter. How old will they be in 2015? Do they think the world will be a better place then?

From: Change the World in Eight Steps: A set of posters and activities for 7–14 year olds investigating the Millennium Development Goals, Oxfam 2005

Activity 2: Living on a dollar (60p) a day (30 min)

Aims
To teach pupils that over one billion people live on less than 60p a day
To help them to imagine what this is like

You will need
> A large piece of paper for each group of pupils

Ask the class what people need in order to live, and write their answers on the board. When they make suggestions such as ‘food’ or ‘clothes’, ask them further questions to encourage them to think more deeply. How much food? What kind of food? How often? Encourage them to think more broadly than just food and clothes. What would happen if they fell ill? What would happen if they were too cold?

Explain to the class that more than a billion people in the world (roughly one-and-a-half times the population of Europe) live on less than 60p a day. In order to help them understand what this means give some examples:

• In Vietnam 60p would buy enough rice, cabbage and mince for three people
• In Mexico 60p would buy rice and beans for five people and half a loaf of bread

How much food would 60p buy in the UK?

Add the other things that people need to the list, and ask the class to rank them, with 1 being the most important and so on. Compare their answers.

• Money for rent or mortgage if they are renting of buying a house
• Money to pay off existing debts if they have any
• Clothes for the family (apart from protection from the weather and decency, people need proper clothes for work, for example)
• Repairs to the house or to things in it (the house may leak when it rains)
• Gas, electricity or fuel for cooking and heating (most food needs to be cooked and people living in cooler climates need to keep warm)
• Water (most people have to pay water companies for providing water)
• Money for school fees (in some countries there is no state education)
• Transport (people might need to take goods to the markets of travel to other towns to work)
• Medicines, doctors, clinics and hospitals (most countries do not provide these for free)

Explain that on 60p a day many of these things could not be paid for. Ask pupils to work in groups and to decide what they would do without and why.

On a large piece of paper, they should create a ‘consequences chain’ showing what would be the result of doing without these things. Display the consequence chains for other groups to see.

From: Change the World in Eight Steps: A set of posters and activities for 7–14 year olds investigating the Millennium Development Goals, Oxfam 2005

Activity 3: Education river (20–30 min)

You will need
> a sheet of A3 paper for each pupils
> pens, crayons, etc

On a sheet of A3 paper, ask pupils to draw a river representing their journey through their school life. Happy times could be represented by a wide calm stretch of the river, a whirlpool could represent a more difficult time. They can mark significant points along the river’s course. Things to think about :

How did I feel when I started school?
How do I feel now?
What is my favourite things about school?
What key things have happened?
Where is my river flowing?’

Pupils could then make a list of the things that they would like to change, share it with the class and discuss how they might make the changes.

From SMF to school challenge lesson plan: www.sendmyfriend.org

Activity 4: Why is school important? (20–30 min)

You will need
> MDG 2 poster (69KB pdf)
> MDG 2 poster: A copy of Pedro’s story (27KB pdf)

Aims
To explore attitudes to school and the benefits that we get from it
To explore the consequences of not going to school

Read Pedro’s story to the class, and ask them to think about why education is important to him.

Ask pupils to talk in pairs and discuss the reasons why education is important to them, then to exchange their ideas in groups of four. Ask the groups to feed their ideas back to the whole class.

Get the whole class to choose the nine most important reasons why education is important. List them on the board.

Ask the pupils to work in groups of four and to diamond-rank the nine agreed reasons in order of importance (younger pupils can use normal ranking). Ask the groups to explain why they made their decisions. Discuss some of the issues that arose.

Finally, ask pupils to consider what the consequences of not having an education would be.

From: Change the World in Eight Steps: A set of posters and activities for 7–14 year olds investigating the Millennium Development Goals, Oxfam 2005

Activity 5: Why can’t some children go to school? (20–30 min)

Aims
To explore reasons why children can’t go to school

Ask the class what they understand as a ‘right’.

Explain to them that free education is a right under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Explain that this means that everyone should be entitled to education, no matter where they live, and no matter who they are. Why do they think everyone should have this as a right?

Refer back to Pedro’s story and remind them why he couldn’t go to school for a time. Explain that currently over 100 million children worldwide can’t go to school. Can they think of any reasons why children are not able to go to school? You may also want to get pupils to consider reasons that stop children in the UK from attending school.

In groups, ask pupils to use the sheet ‘Why I can’t go to school’ to note down a list of reasons why so many children miss out on their education.

As a class, think about what could help to make a difference and who has the power to change things.

Further work (age 11-14)
Pupils could be asked to do research into the reasons why children can’t go to school and the issues behind them (e.g. poverty, conflict, illness). How is the lack of an education linked to, say, conflict? Can they find any stories of young people who have missed their education through conflict?

Use the WHY- WHY- WHY- chain to explore and extend their thinking on the root causes of lack of education.

From: Change the World in Eight Steps: A set of posters and activities for 7–14 year olds investigating the Millennium Development Goals, Oxfam 2005

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