Lesson learned from the implementation of disaster risk reduction educational material

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Permalink Reply by Justin Sharpe on July 13, 2011 at 9:52am

Jenn,

Thanks for posting such an interesting question! DRR educational materials vary wildly in both content, quality and sometimes accuracy! I have developed educational materials for secondary school students, but have also used  it with younger students as the materials are easily adapted by a teacher. However, there seems to be a further problem with a lot of educational materials in general, in that they are often overly didactic and I wonder whether they truly engage the learner. Furthermore, learning about DRR is one thing, doing something is another and so I believe that learners of ALL ages need to learn by doing with time for reflection and confidence building in order to build personal efficacy. This should and must include children, who need to know that they can also be responsible for their own safety and in fact as knowledge seekers and learners they are more likely to have better knowledge than their parents in some instances! 

 

In terms of your need for further information about younger children, it would be useful to contact Yasamin Izakhah, who has been working with young children in her home country of Iran for some time and has been a member of Edu4DRR for a number of years and is very helpful indeed. Here page on here is: http://www.edu4drr.org/profile/YasaminOIzadkhah 

 

I hope this helps, while giving you pause for thought in what 'education' should and can mean for effective DRR!

 

Kind Regards,

 

Justin

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Permalink Reply by Jenn on July 13, 2011 at 10:28am

Thank you so much for your response Justin and your very valid points! 

I think that the key for developers is to ensure that children's exposure to DRR is practical and not just theoretical.

A surprisingly large amount of material has been developed, but how effective it has been remains a largely unanswered question.

I will most certainly contact Yasamin. Thank you so much for that information. 

Kind regards,

Jenn

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