Media, Democracy & Civic Engagement
Teacher-trainees agree that more needs to be done to draw pupils out of their shells
Media, Democracy & Civic Engagement 3 October, 2011 – Included in their role of educating children, teachers also have the responsibility of guiding students towards public media spaces, and encouraging their self-expression. This was the consensus at the end of a two-day seminar for teacher trainees at the Paro college of education (PCE) that took place over the weekend.
Most teacher trainees, attending the Media, Democracy and Civic Engagement seminar, agreed that there is a lack of public space and culture of self-expression for students in Bhutan. About 20 teacher trainees, set to graduate and serve in rural schools next year, attended the seminar.
The seminar wound down to three core questions that the teacher trainees deliberated upon: how to encourage self-expression, what public spaces are available, and how to create more participatory processes.
To encourage self-expression among students, teacher trainees said that student self-confidence had to be increased first. This, they said, could be addressed by bringing them “in front of people to talk”, through debates, panel discussions, and for those not comfortable with verbal expression, through writing articles for a school newspaper or magazine.
More public spaces could be created by forming media, literary and art clubs, teacher trainee Pema Wangzom pointed out.
To create more participatory processes, teacher trainee Nim Dorji said that media personnel could be invited to classrooms to talk about their work, and what kind of participation they expected from students. Students also needed to be sensitised on using their mobile phones to access media and participate, he said. Students also needed to be made aware of issues that relate to youth and democracy, for instance, such as a male teacher favouring female students in class, he added. He said that students needed to be aware that their concerns can be answered.
The director of Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy (BCMD), Siok-Sian Pek Dorji, which organised the seminar, said that the agency would assist any of the teacher trainees to establish media clubs once they are in the field. She said the seminar was organised to address the issue of lack of self expression and participation among youth. “We have to spread the understanding that democracy is dependent on self expression,” she said. The seminar’s ultimate objective is also to enable the youth to “write their own stories”, she said, adding that Bhutan is ready for citizen journalism.
Nim Dorji pointed out that it is a “huge responsibility” for teachers to show the youth how the role of media can be part of their lives and get their issues across.
Source: kuenselonline