January in Review & International day of Sport for Development and Peace

credits: shuterstock.com

"Importantly, sport transcends boundaries and promotes tolerance, perseverance, and respect within and between cultures … to promote just, peaceful, and inclusive societies."

President of the 78th session of the General Assembly, Mr. Dennis Francis, Remarks at the commemoration of World Football Day, 22 May 2024

The International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP) is annually celebrated on 6 April, to recognize the power of sport in fostering positive change, bridging barriers, and transcending boundaries.

credits: UN

The adoption of this Day signifies the increasing recognition by the UN of the positive influence that sport can have on the advancement of human rights, and social and economic development.

Due to its vast reach, unparalleled popularity and foundation of positive values, sport is ideally positioned to contribute towards the United Nations’ objectives for development and peace.

credits. UNESCO Body & Mind Wellness

https://unescobmw.org/2025/

• Theme 2025

"Leveling the Playing Field: Sport for Social Inclusion."

This year’s theme aims to challenge stereotypes, promote equal opportunities, and enable inclusive sport for all, regardless of age, gender, or race. It highlights the role of sport as a unifying force that fosters inclusion and more equitable societies, while being a powerful platform for dialogue to tackle prejudices and inspire positive change across the world.

Through inspiring conversations, IDSDP strives to raise awareness, celebrate success stories, strengthen partnerships, and advocate for solutions to critical challenges. IDSDP 2025 will serve as a platform to explore solutions on how sport can serve as a tool towards greater social inclusion and progress. 

credits: UNESCO

Education:

"On this International Day, UNESCO celebrates the virtues and universal values of sport. It hopes to remind us how much the practice of sport, which allows us to care for both our physical and mental health, also carries with it the ethical principle of peaceful coexistence, something which we particularly need in these troubled times."

Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General

via Google Images Archive

UNESCO BMW envisions a world where sports play a key role in promoting peace, health, and social well-being. The organization strongly advocates for physical activity, recognizing its vital role in maintaining mental and physical health. 

Today, depression and stress have become widespread issues, and the lack of physical activity has further aggravated these problems. To address this, UNESCO BMW is actively promoting yoga and meditation as effective methods for stress management and overall well-being.

via Google Images Archive

After this important introduction, time to my review of the most read posts of January 2025.

Here are the most popular posts of January 2025:

Schools : Science - Rise of the Half Moon January ! Let's continue to study the lunar phases with another game ?

History in School : The 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Auschwitz Birkenau !

Science : Here they are ! The Quadrantids !

To a New Generation : International Year for Peace & Trust 2025 : Resources & Activities !

 

My usual readers know that blogging is my free contribution to inspire new  and young teachers, with some activities no matter the subject, when I have the time between work.

Hope you enjoyed my pedagogical proposals published in January and included some in your lessons.

Easter is near ! That's a nice time to think about family and some traditional games.  

I hope that you will have a great weekend! 

G-Souto 

06.04.2025

Copyright © 2025G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

January in Review &  Intl Day of Sport for Development and Peace by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Fighting cyberbullying with Shakespeare ? Yes !

credits; Flocabulary

This week we celebrated the Bard's birthday William Shakespeare (April 23).

And suddenly I found on Facebook this interesting project. In honour of Shakespeare's birthday, an adaptation of a classic play to help nurture the emotional experiences of young people, specifically around bullying. 

"A Shakespeare play on Facebook? Yes! It's true! And it's happening NOW! You can be a part of Shakespeare's classic comedy as we present it in real time over three days."

The project explores social media as an educational tool and will send a powerful message about cyberbullying to today's plugged-in students.

https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/

"In Much Ado, the villainous Don John destroys an innocent girl's impending marriage by conspiring with others to make her appear unfaithful. The girl, Hero, fakes her own death to escape the scorn of her fiancé and family until the truth can be revealed and the lovers can be reunited. 

Much Ado also features the memorable characters of Beatrice and Benedick, who start the play at each other's throats and learn to love each other through some clever trickery on the part of their friends."

(about the play)

Much Ado About Nothing is presenting on a special page through status updates, posts, pictures and videos.

The students helped create separate pages for their characters complete with pictures, in-character bios and likes. 

It’s a great way to make Shakespeare more comprehensible to teenagers, kids, and especially kids who don’t enjoy Shakespeare right away.

A hip-hop introduction to "Much Ado About Nothing" is an original animated adaptation, written and performed by Flocabulary. Flocabulary, a hip hop education resource, turned out a surprisingly entertaining and useful video (watch it below) to help explain the plot. 

Watch the hip hop to Much About Nothing by Shakespeare here.

Reviewing Much Ado About Nothing has never been more fun. Shakespeare is stumped about what to write for his next play. Good thing he asks Peter the janitor for some ideas. Together they weave the plot of Much Ado About Nothing, from Beatrice and Benedict's unlikely romance to Don John's evil scheming. Quickly review the hijinks of one of Shakespeare's most famous comedies with this song.

Illustration of Much Ado About Nothing, N. Rowe, 1709

Much About Nothing

by Shakespeare

https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/

Education:

It's a creative project to include into Literature and Civics curricula. And students love social media in the classroom.

The project is meant both as a digital educational resource and a tool to combat cyber bullying at school.

And that is a fantastic idea to motivate students to learn about Shakespeare in the school curricula and fight cyber bullying.

Much Ado About Nothing deals with the damage caused by false information and pain of bullying in the Internet (images, films, rumors) between teens.

Facebook has been the site of much cyber bullying. But Facebook is making efforts to provide a slew of tools and resources available to report abuse. 

The project was hosted on Facebook, where many students are already present!

The performance is in full swing (it began yesterday), but you can catch up on the action by reading everything that has happened so far. 

Weekly Reader has teamed up with the Ophelia Project and White Plain’s High School. 

Of course, don´t forget to visit the Shakespeare website. There's a lot of good information and activities to include into your courses about Shakespeare.

Music fighting bullying
a project in school

https://gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com/

Some thoughts:

I have developed cross-curricular projects with my students to fight bullying at school, some years ago, based on literature, music and civics.

Believe me! The students were very excited and they developed awesome activities.

Cyberbullying came after. But it begins always at school. Educators can do an incredible job helping teenagers to understand how dangerous it is for both sides cyberbullying the classmates.

I am sure your students will love developing some similar projects learning Shakespeare and fighting cyberbullying.

"Cyberbullying is a serious issue for today's youth, so we're very excited to bring this message into their territory and language," said Jessica Semler, program coordinator for The Ophelia Project. "From a literary standpoint, it is great to show how relevant and spot-on Shakespeare still is."

G-Souto

27.04.2011

Copyright © 2011G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Fighting cyberbullying with Shakespeare ? Yes ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References: 

credits: video 3 minute Shakespeare