Facilitation
The facilitator sets the stage, creating a setting where human rights are respected but the children are the main actors on this stage. There is, however, no perfect environment for human rights education. Even situations where children violate each other’s rights can become learning experiences. The success of any activity, however, depends principally on the tact, skill and experience of the facilitator.
Many people who work with children are unfamiliar with facilitation and find it challenging and even uncomfortable. They take for granted their traditional role as ‘leader’ or ‘teacher’. Most children are also conditioned to depend on an adult to impart information; however, children accept responsibility for their own learning more readily than adults give up their role as authority and expert. Facilitation is not difficult, however, and most facilitators ‘learn by doing’, provided they understand and accept the shift to a child-centred, experiential approach to learning.
The art of facilitation requires not only a shift in focus, but also a high degree of self-awareness. Because children are powerfully influenced by the behaviour of adults in their lives, facilitators must take care to model the human rights values they wish to convey. An activity on gender stereotyping, for example, will be useless if the facilitator habitually displays gender bias. For this reason, facilitators must recognise, acknowledge and conscientiously address their own prejudices and biases, even more so if they are directed against children in the group.
Every human being has prejudices! What are yours?
Could some of your prejudices affect the children you work with?
What can you do to address these prejudices?