European Youth Media Days 2016

Off To A Good Start: Learning by doing – citizenship education in practice

Text by Agata Mazepus, Poland


 

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Confucius


How can the media contribute to positive change? Laura Lopez, the Education Policy Officer of the European Youth Forum, said that media should focus more on the positive things.

“Personally, I am emotionally exhausted from hearing only negative news. Where are all the good things that are happening? Why aren’t we emphasising that somebody took a positive action and changed the life of another person?” she asked.

“My message is: let’s cherish the good things more and provoke a change for better by giving a positive example,” Lopez said.

“If you are just reading or listening about something, you cannot relate to it. But if you get involved, it makes you think about your own life and your own decisions, and that is why learning by doing is better than other forms of acquiring the knowledge,” Anja from the National Youth Council of Slovenia added.

“For us, the practitioners of non-formal education, learning by doing is the way”, Eliza Popper from the European Youth Forum said. “If we just talk about some issues to the people, they either feel it or they don’t, they agree or they do not, but when they realise something on their own, when they get a full experience, it is much easier to invoke a change in attitudes, behaviours, and thoughts,” she explained.

This message is also a message to all of us. Because, as the motto of this year’s European Youth Event states: “Together we can make a change!”

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