A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS: UNIVERSAL CHILDREN'S DAY

UNIVERSAL CHILDREN'S DAY - NOVEMBER 20-2018

Universal Children's Day - November 20-2018. United Nations Universal Children's Day was established in 1954 and is celebrated on November 20th each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children's welfare.

November 20th is an important date as it is the date in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. It is also the date in 1989 when the UN General assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Since 1990, Universal Children’s Day also marks the anniversary of the date that the UN General Assembly adopted both the declaration and the convention on children’s rights.

Mothers and fathers, teachers, nurses and doctors, government leaders, human rights activists, religious and community elders, corporate moguls and media professionals as well as young people and children themselves can play an important part in making Universal Children’s Day relevant for their societies, communities and nations.

Universal Children’s Day offers each of us an opportunity to advocate, promote and celebrate children’s rights, translating into dialogues and actions that will build a better world for Children. This is a day for children, by children, all over the world to help save children’s lives, fight for their rights and help them fulfil their potential.

Reading is one of the best lifetime habits we can acquire and also encourage in our children. There are some tried and true methods that have worked in encouraging children to love reading. Read to your children, read with your children and let your children see that you enjoy reading. Buy books for your children and encourage relatives and friends who express an interest in buying gifts for your children to make some of those gifts books. Take your children to the library to borrow books and introduce them to some of your favourite authors.

CULTURALLY RELEVANT BOOKS

Culturally relevant books display the cultural heritage of students and are directly related to their lives. Books are culturally relevant when there are similarities between the characters and the lives of students and their families. When there are relationships between the students’ experiences and those told in the stories the children are engaged. Books are also culturally relevant when students are familiar with the places and themes mentioned in the stories. Culturally relevant books may also contain familiar phrases or figures of speech.

What children read shapes what they think of themselves, of others and of the world. Children’s literature does not always reflect diversity. “The ways in which we are misrepresented, are marginalized, or deleted vary according to our identities,” Penn Graduate School of Education expert on children’s literature Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas says, “but all youth-focused narratives that enter popular culture should be more representative. It's not just kids of color, kids from the margins who need diverse literature and media. It's all kids who need all stories about all kinds of people.”

Books and other printed materials should represent the interests of the students and reflect the diversity of students in any classroom. Some classrooms are devoid of reading materials written by racialized authors or which prominently feature the lively and rich histories of the diverse cultures represented in the school. In many cases there is no representation of racialized people not even the images on the walls of the school.

Many children have never been exposed to their own cultural heritage in the books they read. A culturally responsive classroom acknowledges and appreciates children’s home cultures and attempts to build upon the uses of language and literacy with which children are already familiar. Familiar stories and predictable books may help children express their cultural uniqueness and share their personal stories.