Afternoon Session: Foundations of Democracy for Kindergarten and Primary School Age Children

This seminar will introduce and demonstrate a very innovative, highly-acclaimed curriculum for young learners. Foundations of Democracy is a curriculum for primary school age children and there are instructional procedures for pre-readers. Foundations of Democracy is not a traditional curriculum about dates, people and events; it is a curriculum about ideas, values and principles fundamental to understanding citizenship in a constitutional democracy. Young learners, both pre-readers and primary students learn these values and principles through activities that are meaningful to their age and experience. The curriculum is organized around four concepts: Authority, Privacy, Responsibility, and Justice. The program provides a Student Activity Book and a Storybook for each concept for both pre-readers and primary students.

In this workshop participants will receive:

• Content and instructional methods
• Strategies for conducting class discussions
• Whole class participation activities
• Role playing activities
• Grouping Strategies
• Intellectual tools to analyze and resolve issue
• Effective question strategies
• Varied Interactive teaching strategies
• Evaluation strategies

This multidisciplinary program has been translated from English into Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian, Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Turkish, Albanian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Kurdish, and Arabic to name a few. The Foundations of Democracy program is being used successfully around the world, and young learners are grasping the content and skills necessary to become contributing, participating citizens. Best of all, young learners are enjoying this hands-on adventure in learning, and so are the teachers.

Sandra Baker, Center for Civic Education Consultant, USA