Teaching Sequence

10 minutes	Introduction
15 minutes	Part A: How Might we Take Action?
10 minutes	Part B: Assigning Groups (Optional)
35 minutes	Part C: Project Planning

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Introduction

This lesson is all about supporting students to apply what they have learnt throughout the lessons and unit. They will collaborate to plan and complete an action that ultimately works at changing attitudes and perceptions among people within their school or local or national community. This change should focus on promoting positive and meaningful understanding of seeking asylum and related policies that exist in the global, national and local community.

Differentiation:

The nature of these projects could be adapted or refined to facilitate the individual completion of the product.

There are a variety of organisations working with refugees and asylum seekers, as well as advocacy groups, all of which provide valuable support and different resources about understanding, taking action or supporting initiatives to strengthen the role of asylum seekers and refugees and their contributions to local and national communities. This lesson adds to these many initiatives and has a number of ideas for potential projects that students can collaboratively or individually plan and complete.

When considering some of these project ideas, think about your unique school community and the human resources that might be available to support the students and capture their enthusiasm for the successful completion of the project.

A key focus of this Social Action lesson is an emphasis on using language and different modes of communication to compel change - be it changing minds, changing attitudes or changing practice. Thus, the List of Challenges is accompanied by a List of Suggestions that students should consider. These have been included to ensure students are taking action by using the power of language and communication. Some students might feel more extended or challenged by developing their own action project using the list of challenges alone. Their project should be agreed upon at your discretion based on student needs.

Target audience:

Please note, and explain to students, that the audience of this Social Action does not need to be the school or local community. Instead, they are contemplating an attitude/belief/mindset that exists with respect to people seeking asylum and policy responses, and considering ways that they can use the power of language and other communication strategies to compel a change in this attitude/belief/mindset.

Before commencing the planning phase of this lesson, emphasise to students that if working in groups, each group member should take responsibility for collecting evidence and artefacts about the work that they put into the project, including drafts of everything they create as part of the project and records of any opportunities they pursue (either successfully or unsuccessfully). An important thing for students to remember is that the PROCESS of completing the project is really important - perhaps even more than the final product, as it is a demonstration of the learning that occurs. Students should aim to demonstrate the growth and learning that they experience both personally and as a group as a result of facing the challenges inherent in a project of this type.
In this lesson students will be asked to:

Think about what they care about
Develop a range of ideas for taking action
Select one idea for taking action
Plan a project around this idea
Execute the project
Reflect on the success of their project and celebrate their efforts

Part A: How Might We Take Action?

Step 1.

Talking about asylum-seeking and offshore detention: when discussing these topics with students, a good place to start is to talk about key terms such as tolerance, respect, harmony, justice, fear, hope, acceptance, belonging, difference and understanding. Consider asking students to reflect on their own relationships with friends and family by asking:

What are the ingredients of a good relationship?
What contributes to a strong sense of community?
How do you know if you belong to a community?
How does it feel when you know you belong or fit in?
What makes you feel pride (both in yourself and those around you) and what happens when you feel disrespected?
What do you do to build trust in your personal relationships?
How do you know and feel when you can trust others?

Explain to students that the issues raised by refugees, people seeking asylum and the policy and public responses to these impact and affect different communities in different ways. Also explain that this issue draws many different perspectives and means different things to different people, but it is important to discuss it with dignity and respect and understanding.

It might be relevant here to consider the context of the school and local community and discuss with students, in a safe and supportive manner, their experiences with diversity in their community. The SBS interactive tool: How diverse is my suburb? could be a useful tool to stimulate discussion.

Finally, explain to students that moving forward in a sustainable, respectful and dignified manner with respect to this issue means improving understanding and appreciation for the complexities of the issues, as well as the contributions that people seeking asylum and Australian citizens have made and can continue to make for the betterment of each other's lives.

Step 2.

Explain to students that they are going to contribute to their school, local or broader community by taking action to compel some change in the community with respect to understanding and taking action about the issues affecting people seeking asylum. Remind students that this is not an assumption that the local community or members of the school community have particular attitudes or all hold the same beliefs. Rather, point out that depending on circumstances, big changes come from small beginnings.

Ask students to think about a perspective, attitude, belief or mentality about people seeking asylum or offshore detention policies that they want to change. This will form the primary goal of their product or project.

Distribute or display this List of Challenges and List of Suggestions to the class. Read through the lists together, talking about how or why each of these possibilities can use language and communication to compel change.

Step 3.

Once complete, invite students to nominate which suggestion or prompt they think will provide them with the best opportunity to use their communication and language skills in a way that compels change.

Step 4.

Explain to students that they will bring to life their own or a suggested solution to one of the challenges identified. It is important that they select an idea that is feasible and realistic to complete within the time frame.

Part B: Assigning Groups (Optional)

Step 1.

If possible, assign students into groups of three based on the suggested action they have shown interest in. Alternatively, break the class into groups of three and invite each group to nominate an action they are interested in or assign groups an action they should work on. When assigning students to groups, see if you can provide the opportunity to work with others who might have a different level of ability or who are of a different gender or cultural background.

Step 2.

Invite each group member to take on a specific role (such as Manager, Scribe, Speaker, Director). Reinforce that while individual members will have a set role, all members will share the responsibility for ensuring that the project is completed. This means that each group member will need to ensure the project stays on track and should be able to explain how the results were achieved. Each group member should be aware of how each member of their group is performing.

Assign group members with the following roles: Roles in groups.

Part C: Project Planning

Step 1.

Encourage students to refine their approach to the action project by using the S.M.A.R.T. criteria. Explain to students that S.M.A.R.T. project criteria can help them focus on what they what to achieve, how they will achieve it, how long it will take and how they will measure their group's success.

Explain to students that if any of the ideas or plans for action don't stand up to the S.M.A.R.T. criteria they should be discarded.

Step 2.

Write the quote below on the board and explain to students that now they have chosen and refined their idea for action, it’s time to start planning. Using the idea chosen or developed and refined in Part B, students should fill in the Project Planning Tool (also available on the Student Worksheet). If students are in groups, they should fill in one together.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret mead

Some tips for supporting groups through the project planning phase:

ensure groups are allocated roles and dividing up the workload fairly
encourage all group members to contribute so that all students have ownership over their projects
remind students to be realistic and make the project achievable
advise students to consider possible challenges and obstacles - being prepared is a great way of ensuring the plan will be a success
encourage groups to keep communication lines open at all stages of project planning and actioning.

Part D: Execute the Project

After completing the planning process, allow time for students to action their projects. This could be done in one day or over a number of weeks to complete the project. The Project Checklist can be used to help students/groups complete their project.

Consider the following tips when supporting students through the execution phase of their projects:

Be clear about time allocation - remind students how much time they have to complete the project and encourage students to be realistic about the task they have to complete in that time.
Keep communications high, making sure everyone has everything they need to complete the work they have been allocation, and that everyone knows what they should be doing.
Talk to your principal. parents and staff about what the students are doing and how/why they are completing their projects.
Remind students to prepare for set-backs and remind them that making change can be hard. Encourage them to continue even in the face of obstacles or challenges.

Part E: Public Display of Learning

A whole-school approach to understanding and taking action with respect to people seeking asylum and offshore detention isn't just about what happens in the classroom or school, but, importantly, also involves the community. Furthermore, an important part of real-world learning is the opportunity for students to present their learning in a public arena. This could mean creating a newsletter featuring students' projects and distributing it to parents and community members. Another option could be producing and screening a two-minute film that documents students' projects and their reflections of learning.

Another great way to present students' learning in a public arena is hosting a student-led community screening of Chasing Asylum in conjunction with an exhibition where the process and final products of students' projects are displayed. Students can use their project planning skills to organise the screening logistics, the invitations to parents/community members and a Q&A session after the screening. Students can use the following resources to help engage the audience in the film:

Chasing Asylum - Film Synopsis
Critically Viewing a Documentary Film
Things to address before viewing and studying Chasing Asylum
Chasing Asylum - Facts and Stats
Interview with Eva Orner - Filmmaker - Chasing Asylum

A community screening can be organised through Demand.Film.

Remind students that the long-play version of Chasing Asylum is rated MA 15+ and requires parental permission before showing it to audiences 15 years and under.

Reflection

Invite students to complete the project/product reflection and personal refection (also available on the Student Worksheet). Each student should complete both sets of reflection questions independently.

Project/Product Reflection

What was the challenge our group chose to focus on?
How does our project help to address the challenge we chose?
Was our project a success? Why or why not?
What parts of the project were the most successful and why?
What parts of the project were the least successful and why? How would we improve these parts?
How would we improve the project overall?
What challenges did we face and how did we overcome them?
How could we extend our project?
Does our project have a legacy?

Self Reflection

What did I learn about addressing a specific challenge?
How did I work in the group?
What would I do differently next time?
What was the best part of working on this project and why?
What was the worst part and why?
What impact did I have?
What am I most proud of?
What did I learn?

Reflection on Change

Emphasise to students that this is specifically reflecting on the change they achieved and the impact they have had as a result of what they created.

What was the outcome of our project/product in terms of compelling change?
What impact have we had on our target audience or community as a result of this project/product?
Are we happy with this impact? Why/why not, and what could we do now in terms of using communication skills to enhance the impact?
Was this impact an emotional or practical impact, and what effect did this have?
If we changed people’s minds or attitudes, how do we ensure this could translate to action in the future?
If we compelled people to take action themselves, what impact did this have?
How can we ensure this impact is sustained?

Finally, congratulate your students on their efforts and remind them to be proud of what they achieved, even if they didn't achieve all they hoped to. Making change is hard and efforts to make change should be acknowledged and celebrated.

Voices of Chasing Asylum - Social Action

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