"Seeing the World …Trough Different Eyes": An Educational Programme about Diversity for Children in Early Childhood Education

This programme is based on the Rights, the Justice and the Respect for Diversity. The rational for this project was “The International Day for Children’s Rights“ and it aimed at informing the children about the... [ view full abstract ]

This programme is based on the Rights, the Justice and the Respect for Diversity. The rational for this project was “The International Day for Children’s Rights“ and it aimed at informing the children about the similarities and the differences between cultures, inspiring them to accept the diversity respecting the civil rights and developing the skills of collaboration, social sensibility and empathy. Being motivated by the book titled “Elmer, the colorful elephant“, which became a subject for discussion, this programme was carried through three stages and it was implemented to children between three and six years old at school "Nipiakos Kipos" in Thessaloniki. The first stage includes the speculation and the definition of the subject, through discussion, exchange of information and brainstorming. The second stage concerns the implementation of the activities with cognitive subjects: child and language, child and mathematics, child and environment, child and expression, child and creativity, child and computer science. Throughout this stage, the teachers and the children read the picture book “ The story of UNICEF in words “, discussed about the basic human needs and the human rights, while the children were engaged in several game-based activities like “ the blind Indian and his guide “ . In the last part of this stage, children created a poster with the title “WE ARE ALL EQUAL…WE ARE ALL FRIENDS”. The third stage is based on the total evaluation of educational world. They realized that human needs are common for all people in spite of their race or their origin. They enriched their vocabulary with new words like collaboration, solidarity, equality. In addition, many questions were answered by searching information on the internet and being involved in many activities approaching the final goal which was the development of a positive attitude and behavior towards diversity.