Report Peer-to-Peer workshop
By Nina Bogosavac and Kim Buisman
United Nations Human Rights Day + Loesje = critical thinking + writing
1) Narrative report
Me and Kim organised a workshop called ‘Critical Writing’. We focused on the way critical thinking can be transferred to others and how human rights can help you with that. Our starting point was the Universal Day of Human Rights (December 10th).
Since we decided to give a workshop to children, we wanted to make sure that even though informative, the workshop would have a ‘light’ and mainly inspirational and fun character. Since me and Kim are both writers (one a journalist to be, and one a book-writing poet), we made sure that writing would be the key element of making this workshop interactive.
The participants were a group of approx. 27 children varying in the age of ten to twelve years old. In our one-hour program we managed to do several assignments that included thinking out of the box and associative thinking and writing. Inspired by Loesje and her workshop during the exchange in Ommen, we wanted to make creative slogans about serious (and less serious) issues that concern young people’s minds.
With a well-prepared Prezi presentation we managed to get the attention of the children in a non-formal way. For example: we used a short clip about a young boy in Egypt who used his right to express himself via a blog to go about the political situation.
The presentation was not only helpful in a visual way, it also made sure that we sticked to the main point. In this chronological order we went through the phenomenon of Loesje, what critical writing is and how associative thinking can lead to unexpected outcomes.
With a warm-up, introduction, main body and a fun collective cooldown at the end, the children managed to get a taste of creative and critical writing – with enough space to have a laugh and ask questions.
2) I do not have a list of participants, and I can imagine that children’s names can not be published. If so, parents of 27 children had to give their consent. That’s not a realistic option. I can however give the name of the principal of the elementary school and the name of the school.
Contact: Liesbeth Prinsen (lprinsen@spelelier.nl)
Name: Basisschool de Spelelier
Location: Boxtel, Noord-Brabant
3) Photos
