Critical Inquiry Framework

This book has given me the inspiration to organize my TICC/Action Research project around the U.N. Rights of the Child.  When I read these case studies for the first time, I had never heard of the U.N. Rights of the Child.  I had no idea that there was an international document stating all of the rights that children should have.  It's also fascinating to me that the United States is one of the countries that has not decided to ratify it, two of the reasons being that the rights prohibit both the death penalty and life imprisonment for children.  Some people speculate that political and religious conservatives have opposed the ratification of the rights, and therefore these rights don't legally pertain to the children who live in the United States.  This is definitely a tragedy, and while Obama has promised to review our failure to ratify the Convention, I still think it's important that my students learn about their rights and the responsibilities that come along with it.

One of the case studies that inspired me was the Protection from Deportation and Family Separation project in which middle school students explored their rights as recent immigrants.  Although many of my students were born in the United States, many of their parents and family members were not and are therefore do not have "legal" status.  I know that the constant fear of deportation or legal trouble is a reality for many of my students and their families, so this case study was particularly inspiring.  I love how Freire played a role in the teacher's planning of this project, and therefore the project was centered around critical pedagogy, "a humanizing teaching philosophy" (75).  Although this case study was done with middle school students, I plan on using some of the ideas that this teacher utilized to engage her English Language Learners "to become critical researchers who look deeply and critically into their lives and surroundings" (75).  So often students are fed lies by the curriculum and sadly, teachers and their realities, fears, and struggles are seldom welcomed into the classroom.  I would love to give them the opportunity to critically look at their community and think about the ways in which they can advocate for child's rights.

It's Not Easy Being Flat: A 3rd-Grade Study of the Rights of Students with Disabilities was another case study that stuck out to me as inspiring and enlightening.  I was especially intrigued because I teach third grade and I found it fascinating to read about how the students researched and learned about different disabilities. I loved how the teacher incorporated literature and book studies so that students could explore disabilities through reading.  I am currently trying to look for books to help my students research the problems that they are trying to solve in their community but I have been struggling to find appropriate books that would be accessible to my students.  However, this project inspires me to think outside the box and look into children's literature (possibly fiction) as another possibility.  Although it is important that my students research nonfiction information in order to inform their investigation, using fiction might also inspire creativity in thinking about solutions to these problems.

Lastly, PeaceJam also provided a lot of insight for me as I have been planning my TICC/Action Research project.  Although it is about high school student activists and their work for human rights, I have learned a lot from the PeaceJam organization.  I have explored their website and have researched how they develop young leaders to be agents of change in their community.  This case study was where I first thought about how to incorporate service learning into my project.  "Service-learning typically is comprised of six components: investigation, planning, action, reflection, demonstration, and celebration" (129).  When I started to ponder about how I could structure this TICC/Action Research for my students, I realized that the service-learning framework fit almost perfectly.  While I have struggled trying to make it practical for elementary students (most service-learning projects are conducted by high school and college students), I have also been inspired by all of the research that I have done about different service-learning projects that have been led by students.  Although the projects outlined in PeaceJam are much bigger than my students' future projects, the structure that the teachers and facilitators used have greatly helped me organize the way in which my students will plan and execute their community projects.

I have enjoyed this book immensely and it has opened my eyes to so many possibilities.  I am so grateful for this introduction to the U.N. Rights of the Child.  I can already see how much these rights have inspired my students to be agents of change in their community.  They have been working for several weeks on selecting articles that speak to them and they will soon start working on a community project based on specific rights that children should have.  While I have been listening to the ideas that my students have been throwing around, I have already been inspired by their insightful and creative thoughts.  I think that the U.N. Rights of the Child is such a great framework and structure for allowing students to be agents of change in their community.  They are so empowering and I am excited to see how these rights empower them to take responsibility to advocate for children's rights.