1. Describe Project: The topic of the lesson will be child labor in foreign countries. Most of the child labor is in the Asia-Pacific region. Although there are child laborers in Africa and Latin America as well. Some of these children have been kidnapped and forced into child slavery. Others are sold into the labor (bonded labor) for very little money or a farm animal to sustain the family. The children are typically poverty stricken and range from age 5-17. They must work to help the family. Therefore, school/education is not an option for these poor children. Children may engage in factory work, agricultural, domestic, or forced armed combat. The central issue I’d like my students to recognize is this is a problem plaguing our current world. I would like my students to understand that while they are in school learning, many children around the world are working in abominable conditions out of necessity for survival.
2. Research Question/Essential Question:
a. What is the nature of childhood? When does it begin and end?
b. What are the rights of children? What do we expect?
c. What are appropriate jobs for children?
d. What types of labor are children forced to do in foreign countries?
e. How/why do these children get involved with becoming a laborer?
f. How are these children’s lives different than children in America?
g. Why isn’t child labor tolerated in the US?
h. Are there laws protecting the children of these foreign countries?
3. Scale of Project: This should take two teacher directed lessons and approximately three days for the students to complete the presentation and writing assignment.
4. Performances of Understanding: Students will be assessed informally during class discussions via teacher observation and an informal inventory checklist. There will be a culminating formal grade for the students’ individual written action research plan.
5. Resources:
http://www.stopchildlabor.org
http://www.hrw.org/children/labor.htm
http://www.freethechildren.com/index.php
http://www.cwa.tnet.co.th/cwa-publications.html
http://www.childlaborphotoproject.org/links.html#us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ijWbplrcw – Chinese Child Labor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3vXEwDTF28 – Child Labor: The Secret Behind the Factory Walls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPw4jTDKYbg – Beyond Their Years- Photos by Lewis Hine
http://www.un-documents.net/gdrc1924.htm -Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1924
Freedman, Russell & Hine, Lewis. (1998). Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
6. Other Questions/Problems/Concerns: I’ve found a lot of great resources so far. Being a middle school teacher, I’ll have to censor some material such as the child sex-trafficking. I’m afraid that when the students are doing their research on the internet, they may find inappropriate material. I’m thinking that I may have to come up with a list of appropriate websites for my students and limit their internet research. Although, if I limit their research, are they really learning to truly “research?”
Julie Ngoc Duong McManuis
Wilson Middle School
US History & English