<The Instructor’s Role>
The instructors (called as “Eco-Kids Instructors”) play crucial roles in the Kids’ ISO 14000 Programme. The main roles of the Eco-Kids Instructors are as follows;
(1)
Promote the Kids’ ISO 14000 Programme;
Instructors visit schools or local authorities to explain the programme and suggest
how to implement it into a school system to school teachers.
(2) Explain how to participate in the programme to children in class;
(3)
Manage the programme in local regions.
Instructors evaluate the children’s works after the programme;
(4) Prepare evaluation sheets for children;
(5) Manage instructors in other levels regarding evaluation works and preparation for evaluation sheets; and
(6) Be an advisor for children in the Middle Level of the programme, where children form a group to challenge their local environmental issues.
In evaluating children, the instructors are expected to work with those points in mind as stated below.
Stimulate
Environmental Awareness of Children
Instructors, as well as school teachers, would play an essential roll to stimulate environmental awareness of children. If you start the programme without stimulation, you are not likely to succeed in the programme. Children may not work on the environmental management with their willingness but may work as a duty. Instructors should think from children’s point of view in order to motivate them.
Experience PDCA Cycle for Environmental
Management
As the methodology of environmental management,
we use generalized scientific research methodology, which has been widely used in
scientific research activities for many years. This methodology is called as
Plan-Do-See in the boy-scout and girl-scout system, and as simplified
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle which is one of the elements of ISO14001. If
children participate in the Kids’ ISO 14000 Programme at about 10 years old, when
they start developing independence, they would never forget this methodology
and will use it for many other issues in their lives. In this regard, it is
very important to make successful operation of this programme for the children
even in the trial phase.
Work Together
The ability to teach the meaning of “working
together” and “networking” is also required for the Eco-Kids Instructors. One
of the most essential ways to deal with problems is to help each other and work
together. The same applies in dealing with the environmental problems both in a
small and global scale. When the children work together with groups in the
distance or in the foreign countries as partners, networking should be a
necessary skill. In the Kids’ ISO 14000 Programme, the Eco-Kids Instructors
play a role as an advisor to the group that is working on the Middle Level, and
as an advisor-coordinator on the Highest Level of the programme to teach the
importance of cooperation.
Instructors should also take a positive view in evaluating the workbook
as the evaluation sheet is to be given to children and the feedback from
instructors will encourage them further environmental activities.
From an educational point of view, instructors don’t have to be an environmental
expert but they should;
like children;
have respectable character; and
have ability to cooperate with children, school teachers, other instructors, ArTech staffs and other organizations.