What was the Problem?

Not only in schools but also streets and different places, students resort to violence to adapt to the group they are in and solve problems. The fact that violence is permanently legitimized by societies causes students to see violence as a fair solution. So, "How can we strengthen students' understanding of justice and make them aware of violence?"

Solution

In the problem-solving process where design-oriented thinking methodology was applied; one of the most important reasons for increasing peer violence in schools is the fact that the concepts of justice and equality cannot be internalized by students.

It was aimed at strengthening children's understanding of justice and equality and ensuring that they realize violence is not a legitimate solution. To strengthen the understanding of equality and justice among students, to encourage them to learn about these concepts and to prevent peer violence, the "Pandora's Box" activity was developed.

In this activity, a transparent box is placed in the classroom and students are instructed to write various situations they witness or experience during the week. They are asked to write on green sheets of paper the situations they deem fair, and on orange sheets of paper the situations they deem unfair. At the end of each week, the teacher opens the box and makes an assessment of what is written. The teacher asks the students to hang these papers in groups on the boards. The teacher can also discuss with the students whether the shared situations are evaluated correctly in the framework of justice. Finally, the teacher talks with the students about what can be done to correct the situations they deem unfair. The teacher emphasizes that violence cannot be used as a tool for justice.

Its Effect

In this process, it was observed that students could better distinguish the difference between the concepts of justice and equality and internalized these concepts better and resorted less to violence in their relations with each other. Besides, students were informed about issues such as rights, injustice, justice, equality and types of violence.

This solution is one of the good examples shared and is also one of the studies included at the special Öğretmen Ağı sessions of the 15th Conference on Good Practices in Education.

Contributors

Duygu Aydoğan (Classroom Teacher), Şahin Çevik (Classroom Teacher), Mevlüt Kulaberoğlu (Classroom Teacher), Gülten Nargoz (Classroom Teacher), Rabia Cerf (Social Studies Teacher), Özlem Karaeş (Classroom Teacher)