Given that changes in Scotland are high on the political and national agenda it seemed natural to begin the P5 school year at Tinto PS using ‘Scotland, and our place in the World’ as a context for learning.
My colleague and I felt it crucial to explore ‘democracy’ in Scotland given that politics wasn’t just on the minds of the over 16s. We began by exploring needs, wants and the UNCRC Rights of the Child, linking these to the role of the Scottish Parliament and MSPs and the processes involved in living in a democracy. However it soon became clear, through the children’s conversations fuelled by the media and the messages they were hearing at home that the shift and passion in Scottish politics was causing far deeper and more thought-provoking questions to be asked by our very young people.
An ideal activity to explore and the issue of ‘identity’ was the ‘What makes me Scottish’ activity from A’ Adam’s Bairns. This is a diamond nine activity where children could consider what it is that ‘Makes them Scottish’ and appreciate the multi-cultural differences, life experiences and backgrounds they individually contribute to the classroom.
For some of the children this activity appeared simple: they had parents who were both born in Scotland, they were born in Scotland and they have always lived here. They are Scottish. However for a surprising majority the discussions were very different. For example, children may have been born in Scotland, but all of their families were born elsewhere, they have a strong sense of culture and therefore do not consider themselves to be Scottish at all. There were many children who had one parent who is not Scottish and consider themselves to have a dual national identity. On the other hand there are children who were not born here, yet have spent most of their lives in Scotland, so consider themselves to be Scottish.
The activity also gave the opportunity for children to discuss and rank the importance to them of factors such as dialect, schooling, names, supporting national teams and contributing to society.
I believe this activity to have made an impact on the children as they have begun to consider at an early stage ‘who’ they are, beyond the norm of likes and dislikes usually discussed in primary school classrooms. The children have a deeper understanding of their peers’ differing perceptions and hopefully will develop into tolerant, respectful global citizens.
