Good Citizens and Respect
I will:
• Discuss what a ‘good’ citizen should do or be.
• Examine corporal punishment as a way of
encouraging respect.
• Discuss the role of the parent in relation to the
behaviour of their children.
A ‘Good’ Citizen
Work in
groups of
4.
1. Draw the table below.
Agree
Disagree
Can’t decide
2. Cut the statements out and stick them onto your
table depending upon your opinion.
Do you ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ or ‘can’t decide’ if the
statement describes a ‘good’ citizen.
The Results
• Which statements did you find it difficult to
decide about and why?
• Which statements did your group not agree
upon?
• Which statements did your group agree
upon?
‘Good’ Citizens
• The problems we have in society are often said to
be the result of there not being enough ‘good’
citizens.
• Politicians, newspaper editors and others tell us
that schools should turn their pupils into good
citizens.
• The trouble is that it is not always easy to say
exactly what a ‘good’ citizen is, and people do not
always agree about it.
The top 5 things that a good citizen
should do or be:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Work in a group of four.
You can use the statements
from the ‘good’ citizen
activity or you can make
your own up.
A Lack of Respect
• Young people are regularly accused of having ‘a
lack of respect’.
• Schools and parents are often blamed for not
teaching young people respect.
• Some people say that the outlawing of corporal
punishment (physical punishment such as canning
or striking someone with a hand) in school is to
blame for young peoples lack of respect.
Corporal Punishment
• It was not until 1889 that children in England and Wales had any kind of special
protection in law.
• Laws banning cruelty to animals appeared sometime before those preventing
cruelty to children.
• One reason for this was that many people believed the law should not interfere
in private family life. Another was the difficulty of prosecuting a violent parent,
as the law did not allow one member of a family to give evidence in court
against another.
• Although corporal punishment is not allowed in schools it is still part of many
children's lives in Britain.
• Some European countries including Sweden and Cyprus have made it an offence
for parents to hit a child but parents are prosecuted only in serious cases.
Corporal Punishment
1.
Do you think that schools should be allowed to use corporal
punishment?
2.
Do you think that parents should be allowed to use corporal
punishment?
3.
Do you think that corporal punishment encourages respect and
‘good’ behaviour?
4.
Complete the table below:
For corporal punishment
Against corporal punishment
What Makes a Good Parent?
• Parents are often blamed for the behaviour of their children.
• Most parents will say that being a mum or dad can be the most difficult
job in the world.
• There is no training, a lot of guesswork and you often make mistakes.
• Being a parent for many people today is, in some ways, different from
what it was in the past.
• Our families tend to be smaller.
• One of the parents may live alone with their child.
• We are less likely to live either with or near our relatives. This means
that grandparents and aunts and uncles may not be on hand to give
advice and help out with the children.
Parents
1.
Create a job advert for a parent:
what skills are needed; what are the hours of work; what
will the job entail etc.
2.
Do you think that parents should be held responsible for
their children's actions.
3.
What do you think young people need from their
parents?
4.
What kind of problems can make it difficult to be a
parent?
A Good Citizen Poster
• Design a poster advertising your number
one statement of what a good citizen should
do or be.