Caution: Children!
Schoolchildren hope the state will listen to them
It is usually adults who organize and take part in all kinds of discussions of children’s problems: they talk, draw conclusions, and decide what their sons and daughters need to be completely happy in life. But one day children decided this was not a very good practice and decided to tackle their problems on their own. January 21 was the last day of a national children’s forum called “The State that Listens to Children,” organized by the pupils’ self-rule board of Kyiv’s Lyceum No. 100 in Podil. The forum, timed to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, sought to remind the state of the existence of children and their rights, and to draft a letter to the president and the future Cabinet of Ministers about the implementation of children-oriented programs.
Naturally, the forum could not do without adults, who helped the children organize the event together with the lyceum’s administration and a civic organization called Center for Democratic Development. A large number of officials attended the opening ceremony, which immediately turned an otherwise completely apolitical gathering into a public rally. Among those in attendance was the head of the lyceum’s board of governors, Anatoly Kinakh, who assured the audience that now that Ukraine has passed such a serious test and has an opportunity to live honestly, we stand every chance of making a qualitative change in our attitude to children. People’s Deputy Liliya Hryhorovych brought a letter of greetings from Viktor Yushchenko in an orange folder. “I will be glad to receive your proposals about implementing governmental programs to protect and support children. I promise that the new government will take them into account,” the message said. Acting Minister of Education, Vasyl Kremen, noted that with this newly-elected president, Ukraine is bound to help pursue a child-oriented policy.
This country is full of expectations of universal excellence. But, there is not doubt that learned gentlemen’s expectations are not half as interesting as children’s. The Day asked some youngsters the following question: “What would you like to change in your country?” The responses were astonishing, as though they were given by much older individuals.
For example, the teenagers immediately focused on the budget. “A new, amended budget should be passed. Funds must be allocated for children’s programs, school meals, equipping rural schools, and computerization,” says 11th-grader Oleksandr Zayema, president of the students’ Self-Governing Board of Lyceum No. 100. “I would really like to resolve the problem of homeless children once and for all. We must update the law and the judicial system, because children more often than not end up on the street after leaving correctional institutions, which in reality damage juvenile inmates instead of rehabilitating them.”
Most adolescents wishes are related to schooling. “I would carry out a small reform of the school to establish mutual understanding between pupils and teachers,” says 11th-grader Artem Bilous, “so that a child could approach a teacher, tell him about his problems, and get some advice. This can’t be done when there are forty pupils in a class. Children suffer from insufficient care and turn inwards.” “Not many children have an opportunity to develop their personalities,” notes 11th-grader Kateryna Sydorus, president of Kyiv’s Podil Students’ Self-Governing Board. “Teenagers always come under some kind of influence, good or bad, and the duty of an educational institution is to counteract bad influence. This can be done by setting up various interest and self-governing groups, where an adolescent can work and develop his/her abilities.”
“A common problem is that adults are convinced that they know everything and the child has no right to his own opinion. In many cases, children themselves do not want to stand up for their rights because they believe adults are entitled to do everything for them. A sort of totalitarianism within the family,” says Volodymyr Kochyn, an 11th-grader from Liberal Arts Lyceum No. 5 in Korostyshev. “Children are often unaware of their rights. Adults, too, are unaware of children’s rights when they fail to defend these rights,” says Yuliya Semeniy, an 11-grader at Liberal Arts Lyceum No. 23 in Zhytomyr.
To sum it up, children have a lot of unresolved problems. Naturally, they want democracy and independence, but as our encounters showed, what today’s senior pupils mostly want is an opportunity to obtain a free, high-quality education, while juniors yearn for love and care-rather modest wishes, wouldn’t you say?
