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Creating Safer Schools: Lessons Learned; Strategies for Action Session 1Session 4:Guiding ideas:Developing a vision for safer schools“We have agreedthat children arepeople and peoplehave rights anddignity. They haveinherent energies andvision that they wantan opportunity todevelop and manifest.If children feel safeand respected thenwe are well on ourway to creating saferschools.”Key objective: To bring together key themes and commonviewpoints and to synthesize the discussion in order todevelop a jointly agreed perspective of what it means to havea safe school.Methodology: This was a collective discussion thatinvolved summarizing key discussions of the past session andsynthesizing as a group the collective vision of what we havecome to mean when we refer to a safer school.Dipak Naker22
SessionSession41Dipak Naker opened this session with anoverall summary of what the group haddiscussed. “We have agreed that children arepeople and people have rights and dignity.They have inherent energies and vision thatthey want an opportunity to develop andmanifest. If children feel safe and respectedthen we are well on our way to creating saferschools. If children know that they matter,and that other people recognize that theymatter, that their voice is important andthat their views count, then we are enablingchildren to develop capabilities, and we arecreating a place where school is a joy.”Creating Safer Schools: Lessons Learned; Strategies for Actionstudents develop? Schooling shouldbe measured in terms of capabilities:the ability to analyze, to do criticalthinking, to be creative, to have selfconfidence,to care about others andyourself, to appreciate difference,diversity and dissent. These are thesame capabilities that will allowchildren to flourish in the world, to getby in an unjust economic environment,and in relationships with other people.That’s what children should be ableto do, and that’s what a safe schoolshould be able to provide.“In the minds of many people, a safer schoolis summarized as one in which there is nocorporal punishment,” said Dr. SusanNkinyangi. “But it’s much more than that.The violence that children experience ascorporal punishment is very clear, but theother parts need to become clearer too. Ihope we can think of some ways to monitorprogress, to create a vocabulary that allowsus to easily explain and monitor what a safeschool is and ask ourselves if we are creatingit.”So, what are the core components of a saferschool? Based on the discussions of the twodays, the group summarized the componentsof a safe school into six categories.1. Clarity of vision and purpose. Theremust be clarity of vision and purposearound what we mean by a goodeducation, about what is an educatedperson, an educated child. We mustrealize that the purpose of a safeschool is to deliver a high qualityeducation to every child. When we talkabout high quality education, we arenot referring simply to passing exams,or having a certificate that validatestime served. Quality education ismore about what students are ableto do. How are they able to thrivein the world? How are they able torelate? What are the capabilities that2. Basic standards. Standards are aset of values we declare and aim tolive by. They declare the collectiveaspirations and inspire participantsto stretch themselves to grow andreach a higher place that representsthe better part of themselves. Manyschools have rules, but not standards.Too often rules such as ‘no spittingon the floor,’ or ‘no talking whilethe teacher is talking’ are seen assufficient substitution for standards.While being very useful, rules withoutstandards diminish our aspirations;shrink the vision by which we hope togrow. Without clear standards suchas respecting each other’s dignity orstriving for excellence and highestdiscipline, written and shared by all, itis difficult to have a safe school.3. Voice. Voice is a unique manifestationof a perspective, priorities, andexperience. It is a fundamental tool forparticipation. If a stake holder’s voiceis not valued or given space and dueconsideration, they learn to becomepassive within the larger system. Theylearn to surrender and resign to thefact that nothing they say, do or think,matters. Lack of a voice in any givensystem is the most reliable predictorof stagnation and onset of decay.Healthier systems develop space for23
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