Help! Help! SOS! (Not SOSE)

[melwil]

I'm writing my SOSE module on democratic decision making. I need to come up with some short statements/descriptions of certain characteristics, while associating them with meetings/decision making and making them appropriate for year five (ten year olds). That's where I need help!! If you can give me a few words for any of them, I will be indebted forever. I will write fic. Or ficlets anyway.

Here's the list:

-rights and responsibilities
-freedom of speech
-tolerance
-choosing/voting
-cooperation
-negotiation
-fairness
-inclusivity
-peaceful resolution
-taking responsible action
-reviewing how well things were done

Can you leave me a name of some sort to reference you. If you don't want your own name, leave me something scholarly. Help me before I go nuts *g*

Comments

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Negotiation is the process of working out an agreement between disagreeing parties. The goal of negotiation is to come up with a solution that is acceptable to both sides. That doesn't mean that each side will get everything they want; instead, each side chooses the most important items to them, and is willing to give up items that are less important to them, to negotiate an agreement that everyone can live with.

Is that young enough?

:)

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Oh, and my name: Darice Moore.

[melwil.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! You really are a life saver at the moment

Hmmm part 1

[megthelegend.livejournal.com]

This is just off the top of my head; please use or don't use or edit as you wish. I've done most of 'em. Oh, and as far as I'm concerned you really don't need to credit me ::g:: if you do use any of this, but I'm Meg (Fox) fwiw.

-rights and responsibilities

As people living in a society we all have to get along. This doesn't mean we have to like each other, but we have to tolerate each other and we have to obey the law. Rights are things that we can expect to happen for us, and responsibilities are things that other people expect us to do.

We all have the responsibility of obeying the law, to make things fair for everyone and safe for everyone. For example, not robbing an old lady, and not getting on a train without paying. Likewise, we have the right to expect that we will NOT be robbed, and that if we are in an accident we will be helped by ambulance people and the police.

-freedom of speech

Freedom of speech means that you have the right to protest against anything you disagree with. It must be a peaceful protest, because other people around you have the right to not be DISTURBED by you; so a rally held in a park where people talk a lot is OK, but a mob of people running down a street and smashing in shop windows is NOT OK. This is the same at school. If you respect the rules you should have the right to object when you don't like something. It's not OK to yell at the teacher in class, but it is OK to talk politely to the teacher when everyone else has gone home.

-tolerance

We don't have to like each other, but we all have the right to do our own thing as long as we don't hurt anyone else. Some people don't believe in eating meat, which is fine - it would only be a problem if they tried to stop other people eating meat.

-choosing/voting
-cooperation

Everyone has to work together to do things for the good of the community - our friends, family, people who work in the shops, and so on. In a classroom everyone could yell and scream and not listen to the teacher, but that would mean that no one would learn anything. In the same way if your house burns down, you would want other people in the street to cooperate in helping you.

Hmmm part 2

[megthelegend.livejournal.com]

-negotiation

When there's an argument, you sometimes have to negotiate to get a solution that everyone's happy with. This can mean that you don't get exactly what you want, but sometimes you just need to talk about what you want and what the other person wants.

I heard a story once about two sisters who both wanted an orange, but there was only one left. They cut it in half, which was fair, but then the first sister only had half a glass of orange juice and the second sister only had half a rind to grate for her cake. If they had negotiated properly then they both could've had exactly what they wanted.

-fairness

This mostly means treating people exactly the same. Sometimes it's not possible to do this, but whenever we can, we should. For example, everyone should get a turn playing a game. If there's a cake and six people want a piece, then it should be cut into six pieces.

But sometimes, you shouldn't treat people the same way. If a window gets broken and two people were at home, but one person was inside watching TV and the other person was outside throwing a ball, and the ball-thrower broke the window, then it's not fair for the TV-watcher to get punished.

One of the best ways to think about fairness is to pretend that you are the other person. If you were the other person, would you be happy with the decision? If you were the TV-watcher, would you be happy about getting punished too?

-inclusivity
-peaceful resolution
-taking responsible action

This has a lot to do with fairness again. If you've done the wrong thing but your teacher or parent thinks it was someone else, you should speak up. It's not fair for your friend or brother or sister to get punished instead of you.

If someone needs help, then you should be responsible and either help them if you can, or tell the person who can help them. For example if your little brother needs help with his Maths and you've got 10 minutes to spare, you should help him. If your little brother is really sick, you should get your mum or dad. Again, think about what it would be like if you were the other person. If you were the little brother and you needed help, what would you want to have happen?

-reviewing how well things were done

A review is when you look at the results of your project and see how it went. You have to see what was good, and what could be done better, so that next time you can do a better job. For example you might find out that Tracey's really good at drawing, so if she's happy to do it, she should do the pictures next time too. You might find out that you left it too late to do the work and next time you should start earlier.

Re: Hmmm part 2

[melwil.livejournal.com]

You are the best. My mind has frazzled and dissapeared and I don't know what I'd do without you guys!

Re: Hmmm part 2

[megthelegend.livejournal.com]

You are very welcome, sweetie! Good luck.