Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

5 minutes

Introduction

10 minutes

Part A: Terminology

30 minutes

Part B: School Audit (The Real)

15 minutes

Part C: Envisioning Dignity (The Ideal)

20 minutes

Part D: Wellbeing Improvement Strategy (The Bridge)

10 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions and success criteria

Students will..

understand the importance of having health and wellbeing policies in organisations
understand that the function of health and wellbeing policies is to support people to feel safe and be free from harassment and discrimination
understand where to find policies and how to evaluate their success
understand how policies can be turned into positive action.

Students can...

evaluate the success of their school’s policies using a variety of auditing tools
identify positive strategies for creating safety and wellbeing and apply these to their school environment
develop proposals to improve their school's policies.

Introduction

Step 1

Read out the following:

The music video we are about to watch was made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from Echuca East Primary School.

The song is called 'Chasing Dreams' and it explores the school’s values of “Practice Respect, Act Responsibly, and Learn Resilience.” It is a vision of how they want their future to be.

Play the video for the class.

Step 2

Ask students to discuss why they think it’s important to have a positive vision as individuals, but also within a school or organisation.

Part A: Terminology

Step 1

Inform students that this lesson is about learning how to create an environment that’s free from racism, bullying, discrimination and harassment, and that as part of this process, they will be evaluating school policies.

Step 2

Invite students to share their definitions of racism, bullying, discrimination and harassment.

A recommended definition of racism is “prejudice, discrimination or hatred directed ay someone because of their colour, ethnicity or national origin" (Source: Racism. It Stops With Me https://itstopswithme.humanrights.gov.au/about-racism).
A recommended definition of bullying is “when a person or a group of people repeatedly use words or actions to hurt a person” (Source: National Centre Against Bullying https://www.ncab.org.au/bullying-advice/bullying-for-parents/definition-of-bullying/).
A recommended definition of discrimination is "treating, or proposing to treat, someone unfavourably because of a personal characteristic protected by the law" (Source: Victorian Equality Opportunity and Human Rights Commission https://www.humanrightscommission.vic.gov.au/discrimination).
A recommended definition of harassment is “aggressive pressure or intimidation” (Oxford English Dictionary).

Emphasise that racism, bullying, discrimination and harassment can occur online as well as in person.

Step 3

Explain to students that they will be viewing some clips that demonstrate these terms, from the documentary The Final Quarter. If students have not watched the film in full, explain the context and content of the film (using the teacher content information).

Watch the following clips from The Final Quarter, and identify them as examples of each of the terms - racism, bullying, discrimination and harassment:

This clip demonstrates racism:

Charlie Pickering - Is It Racial (https://vimeo.com/348312056/a079067174)

This clip demonstrates bullying (highlight that this is bullying because it is hurtful behaviour that is repeated over and over again towards an individual):

Not in the spirit of the game (https://vimeo.com/350234940/23b621cdc9)

This clip demonstrates discrimination:

Utopia (https://vimeo.com/348324116/ae2f7a0ad5)

This clip demonstrates harassment:

Unite and Placate (https://vimeo.com/350235657/87aff612e9)

Ask students if they feel confident about the differences between each term now. Clarify any points of confusion.

Step 4

Pose the question:

How does society prevent racism, bullying, discrimination and harassment on a system level?

Inform students that policies are society’s way of aiming to protect people from this kind of treatment.

Read the following:

A policy is an agreement made by an organisation or government to set standards and achieve outcomes. Policies also educate people about the standards required.

Step 5

Explain that in this lesson, students will be conducting an audit on their school’s policies against racism, bullying, discrimination and harassment.

Explain that an audit is how you check that policies, procedures or budgets are achieving their intended outcomes.

Part B: School audit (The Real)

Step 1

Invite eight volunteers to be the auditors, then divide the eight students into four pairs.

Explain to these students that they will be responsible for collecting data from their classmates, using ‘focus groups’.

Allow the ‘auditors’ to decide amongst themselves which pair will audit the racism policy, which pair will audit the bullying policy, which pair will audit the discrimination policy and which pair will audit the harassment policy.

Step 2

Advise the rest of the class that they will form focus groups for the audit.

If they don’t know what a focus group is, you can tell them that it is a small but diverse group of people who give feedback on a policy or product, for the purpose of improving it.

Explain that the auditors will be asking the focus group questions about school policies. The focus group will give answers based on their experience (although if students do not feel comfortable with a question, they do not have to answer it).

Step 3

Randomly divide the class (excluding the six auditors) into three groups. Allocate one of the policy areas (racism, bullying, discrimination or harassment) to each group.

Distribute the relevant school policy and a copy of the School Policy Audit Worksheet, with instructions, to the auditors. Allow a few minutes for the auditors to ask any questions about the process or documents.

Step 4

Invite the auditors to meet with their focus groups. If possible allow some groups to use another classroom space.

The auditors should provide their focus group with the name of the policy, and explain that their answers to all of the following questions should relate to this policy only.

Step 5

Students should read out the questions, allowing time for all members to respond with Strongly Agree, Agree, Neither Agree Nor Disagree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree. For each response, they should make a mark in the relevant column next to each question.

Step 6

The auditor should then display, distribute or read the policy to the focus group. If it is long, you might want to highlight the most relevant sections. The auditor should allow the focus group to take a few minutes for discussion and feedback on the policy. The auditor should take note of anything relevant or important in the ‘Comments’ section on the School Policy Audit sheet.

Step 7

Bring all the groups back together and invite the auditors to collate the data on the forms using the Audit Collation Worksheet.

Note: While the auditors are doing this, you might like to help them out, or engage the other students in a conversation about the focus groups, asking questions about the process and what they learned or were surprised about.

Part C: Envisioning dignity (The Ideal)

Step 1

Write this question on the whiteboard and ask students to quietly think about it:

What would the world be like without racism, bullying, discrimination and harassment?

Do not invite discussion at this stage.

Remind students of the vision put forward in the Echuca East ‘Chasing Dreams’ video they watched at the beginning of the lesson. Encourage students to be bold and creative in their visions.

Distribute the Envisioning Dignity Worksheets from Global Dignity and allow students a few minutes to individually complete the activities on the sheet.

Step 2

Invite students to share their worksheets in pairs, if they feel comfortable doing so.

Step 3

Play this clip from The Final Quarter:

Australian of the Yearshort (https://player.vimeo.com/video/350234853)

Ask students what they noticed about this clip, compared to the ones they saw earlier in the lesson. Also, ask them if they think that this event occurred before or after the booing (it was before).

Explain to them that this clip shows Adam Goodes being treated with ‘dignity’ and ‘respect’. Ask students if they think Adam also behaved with dignity.

If students aren’t quite sure what ‘dignity’ is, you might like to show them this music video:

Dignity Song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftl1fhFnYu0)

Part D: Wellbeing improvement strategy (The Bridge)

Step 1

Explain to students that now they know where they are (based on the data from the policy audit) and where they would like to be (based on their visions), it is time to develop a plan to bridge that gap.

Share this clip, pointing out that it demonstrates people taking positive action towards dignity, and away from racism, bullying, discrimination and harassment:

View this clip from The Final Quarter:

I stand w ith Adam (https://player.vimeo.com/video/348313112)

Step 2

Ask students to choose one of the following questions and form working groups:

How can we improve our school policies on racism, bullying, discrimination and harassment?
How can we more effectively implement the policies in practice?
How can we educate the school community about the policies?

Provide each group with markers and butcher’s paper. Invite students to discuss and write down/draw their solution for their chosen question.

Step 3

Invite two students from each group to write a letter to the principal that puts forward the most popular suggestion/s.

Reflection

Turn and Talk

Ask students to turn to a partner and discuss their answers to this question:

Why do you think it is important for students to have input into the development and implementation of their school’s policies?

Then do a quick whip around the group:

What’s your take-away from today’s lesson?

Differentiated Learning

Extension

Invite students to complete the table below available on the Student Worksheet.

My initial responses to the topic of creating safety at school were:	My new responses to creating safety at school are:
Ideas:	Ideas:
Questions:	Questions:
Plan for change:	Plan for change:

Provisions for Learning Support -

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

The Final Quarter - Racism And School Responsibility

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Summary

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