LITERARY REVOLUTION:
Children’s Online Journal and Interactive Catalogue of Literary Materials
and Facilitator of Education and Discussions about Oppression in Thai Society
Context
As more and more children from primary school to university in Thailand have been engaging in political reading and activities since early 2020, as part of Thai young people’s cultural reform, it is crucial and a very good opportunity to provide them a space to meet, learn, express, and develop their political identity to become active and informed citizens.
Description
LITERARY REVOLUTION is an e-journal website where everyone, especially children, is encouraged to consume political media, think over it, exchange their opinions, and reflect their opinions back to society through critical reviews of the media they consumed.
The website accepts and curates any forms of reviews about social justice-themed popular media and activities, specifically submitted by child writers from the earliest age possible to 18 years old. To ensure child-friendly language and children’s participation in every part of the project, the reviews will be edited and proofread by child editors recruited from schools and online platforms for child writers and readers. The young editors work alongside professional editors, assigned to help them develop skills and working process to produce content that meets publishing standards. Web-users can interact with the reviewed items through four buttons: “Share”, “Target”, “On it”, and “Done”. Web admins can use the statistics of children’s engagements from these four interactions with each material to customarily design further activities on the item to promote children’s political education and participation.
Objectives
1. Improve children’s political knowledge and communication:
Working with professional editors, child writers, and child editors can improve their literacy skills (e.g,. writing, reading, criticizing, and editing), recognize the diverse forms of oppression in reality, and communicate their political thoughts better. Child writers’ reviews are also hoped to inspire other children to express their thoughts and improve their communicative skills. The use of mass entertainment and artistic materials like books, films, games, songs, etc. is expected to bring in children from diverse backgrounds to actively discussing oppression in society.
2. Help children build on the experience of each other:
Curating and categorizing children's recommended items and reviews, the website makes children’s political discussion searchable and visible for anyone anywhere and anytime. It is expected to promote collective thinking and strengthen children's solidarity as they actively build on each other’s ideas on each political issue. Showcasing children’s potentials in conceiving political thoughts and actions, the website is hoped to lessen adults’ prejudice against children and normalize children’s social participation.
3. Facilitates inclusive anti-oppression education and discussion:
Analyzing children’s four interactions to the item, the web admins can tailor activities that cater to the children’s needs. For instance, they can inform publishers about the demand for each item, open pre-order for the reprint, prepare e-books, and plan book talks or game nights for items with many participants. Hopefully, teachers and parents will be inspired to use daily media to engage children in political discussion with them too. Corpus: Reviews of social injustice-themed media (books, films, series, games, etc.). For example, Books: The Little Red Schoolbook (1969), Pippy Longstocking (1945), The Witches (1983); Films/Series: Bad Genius (2017), Girl from Nowhere (2018), The Hunger Games (2012-2015); Games/Songs: Corrupt the Game (2018), John Butler Trio's Revolution (2010).
THE PROPOSAL
Rationale
Social justice, especially the topic of oppression, is a crucial topic for children to learn to become informed citizens, with the strong will to create a fair, inclusive society for all (Gopalakrishnan&Persiani-Becker, 2011; Nussbaum, 2003). Although adults tend to question children’s ability to understand and have critical opinions on political topics due to their lack of social experience (Gubar, 2013), studies show that individual political knowledge and attitudes are shaped early in life through the child’s interactions with social environments, such as parents, teachers, friends, media and more (Berti&Andriolo 2001; Abendschön, 2015; Cotton&Daly, 2015). Political knowledge will develop as the children grow (Abendschön, 2015) and influence their political stance that will determine the society’s future when they can vote (Nussbaum, 2003) or even disrupts the present time as many child activists are doing now.
In this light, LITERARY REVOLUTION was conceived to promote children’s political dialogues and participation from the earliest age possible. The project is highly relevant to the current situation in Thailand because this whole year (2020-until now) children from primary to high school there have been intensively engaging in a political movement to reform many things in the country from education failure, authoritarian culture to the unjust constitutional laws and the Lèse-majesté law that prohibit people to criticize Thai monarchy. As children are widely awakened to social justice and oppression, space for them to meet, learn, express, and develop their political identity could not be more necessary.
Theoretical Framework
The design of LITERARY REVOLUTION is framed by Todres&Higinbotham’s (2016) interpretation of The Convention on the Rights of the Child- CRC (1989) for children’s meaningful participation and Frier’s (1968) theory of empowerment and liberation of the oppressed through meaningful dialogues. According to Todres&Higinbotham (2016), children’s meaningful participation is upheld by multiple regulations in the CRC, which secure their rights to be informed and supported in critically analyzing information and expressing their thoughts. Their opinions must also be attentively heard and incorporated in any decision that will affect them.
Despite the Convention, adults still sometimes barred children from social participation either to protect childhood innocence or to sustain their oppressive authority over the young. Seeing children as innocent, fragile, and unable to understand difficult matters, adults tend to hide complex and negative social issues from children to prevent any discomfort (Kümmerling-Meibauer, 2007). However, this good intention deprives children of not only well-rounded information about society, but also the opportunity for them to discuss, understand, and actively deal with problems that can affect their lives and development (Gubar, 2013; Kingston et al 2003, Nel, 2017). The passive image of childhood can even influence children’s subjectivities, stifling their potentials to fully participate in social matters, which in turn, reinforces the existing bias against them that they cannot contribute valuable opinions for their community (James&James, 2012). This deficit model of childhood can also lead to child oppression, the second hindrance for their participation. As children are expected to unquestionably submit to adults’ authority for protection and discipline as they grow (Gubar, 2013; Kingston et al 2003), some adults take advantage of the power to abuse children physically, emotionally, or sexually (Kingston et al 2003), making them vulnerable and scared to voice out.
The suppression of child participation and the oppression of children like this are recently observable throughout Thailand. As children have run political protests nationwide in their schools and communities since early 2020, many adults have disregarded their movement as child play. They called the children “ungrateful”, “disrespectful”, “rude” and “arrogant” and even accused them of being “nation haters” and “political tool” for foreign powers. Some children were threatened by teachers and disowned by parents for their political expressions. These reactions reflect that many adults in Thai society (e.g., parents, teachers, school executives, and politicians) strongly believe that children cannot critically think and understand politics, thus, are easily influenced, incapable and invalid to perform political acts.
To liberate Thai children from social oppression and help them get full participation in political issues, I turned to Paulo Freire’s seminal book, Pedagogy of the Oppress (1968) for suggestions. According to Freire (1968), anti-oppression discussions amongst the oppressed are crucial in liberating both themselves and the whole society from the unfair system. As social injustices benefit the oppressors and disadvantage the oppressed, the former ones cannot be accounted to change the system that is favorable to them to benefit everyone alike. However, as the oppressed were born into the culture that teaches them to depend on their oppressors’ superficial help, live for them, and preserve the system in return (p. 72), the oppressed often become dependent and obedient to their oppressors. They are also prone to find themselves irrelevant to political participation and feel too powerless to negotiate for changes. To encourage passive subjects to fight for themselves and others, Frier avers that the oppressed must engage in “critical and liberating dialogue” (p. 65). These dialogues will allow them to critically look at themselves and the world (p.92), helps them recognize various forms of injustice and its causes, and empowers them to move together towards liberation (p. 26, 74-75).
Applying Theory to the Context
As anti-oppression dialogues are the first step to liberate children from the passive role imposed on them (Freire, 1968), I explored Thai children’s discussion about oppression on popular platforms for young Thais, such as in Dek-D.com, Pantip.com, Twitter, Facebook, and Telegram. The oppression topics they discussed range from parents’ controlling attitudes, school rules that abuse children’s rights (e.g., strict uniform and hairstyle regulations), abusive teachers, and education failure, to the government’s inefficiency and the Thai monarchy’s immorality. Books and movies that criticize diverse forms of oppression (e.g., The Hunger Games, Les Miserable, Thai soap operas) were also discussed. This confirms the studies above that children can notice and critically discuss oppression in media and reality.
However, children’s meaningful participation can happen only when children’s voices are heard and utilized for changes (Todres&Higinbotham, 2016). From my observation of Thai children’s online discussion, there are three factors that obstruct them from communicating with each other and being heard by a wider audience. Firstly, many children lack political knowledge and communicative skills. Young writers tend to ramble and misspell, causing readers’ confusion and contempt, shown in the comment section of their posts. Secondly, most children's dialogues lack development. Many children shared and problematized their experiences of being oppressed and abused online. However, several discussions ended up with encouragement to endure the oppression until they grow up and be independent, instead of initiating changes. Moreover, although the same topics are discussed in many forums, they usually ended without a significant conclusion. Thirdly, the generational/algorithm divide makes adults and children rarely engage in the conversation about oppression on the same online platforms. When they collided in online discussions, their different style of communication and attitude often turned the conversation into verbal battles. With generational and technological divisions, adults miss the opportunity to see not only children’s problems but also their potentials to efficiently participate in political issues.
The Three Objectives
To solve the three problems above, LITERARY REVOLUTION is designed to achieve three goals. First, it must help improve children’s political knowledge and communication. The project aims to provide children versatile political inputs and engage them in practicing critical thinking and communicative skills. It intends to show children that they have rights and power to participate and negotiate changes (Freire, 1968) and prepare them to effectively use their rights (Todres&Higinbotham, 2016). Second, the project must help children build on experience of each other. Children will be supported to opinions from people of their ages on the same topic and collectively think upon it until they reach a significant conclusion. Seeing each other under oppression can strengthen children’s solidarity to move together for changes (Freire, 1968). As children’s voices become collective and stronger, they are likely to be heard and able to influence society (Freire, 1968; Todres&Higinbotham, 2016). Third, the project must facilitate inclusive anti-oppression education and discussion. To liberate the whole society from injustice, a conversation in which every opinion is attentively listened to and not dehumanized must be upheld (Freire, 1968). The project, therefore, aims to promote not only the conversations between children but also child-adult dialogues, which will enrich them both with diverse viewpoints. It ultimately aims to bridge generational gaps and create and multiply peaceful, inclusive conversations in the future.
The Project Design
As web 2.0 provides a conversational space that is accessible for anyone, anywhere and anytime (boyd, 2014), LITERARY REVOLUTION operates mainly through a website, LiteraryRevolution.com, to increase its audience’s reachability to social justice discussions. Its design provides three main functions that help achieve the three abovementioned goals.
Firstly, the website works as an online journal where children improve their critical thinking and communicative skills from peer assessment and adult mentoring. It accepts from children (of any age up until 18 years old) any forms of reviews (e.g., writing, video clips, and any experimental works) about their beloved literary items (e.g., books, films, games, etc.) that discuss social justice or oppression. This function of the website provides children more access to educational and entertaining political content. Reading the reviews, children can see each other’s opinions on oppression and develop solidarity for liberation (Freire, 1968). Sharing the love for popular culture with other fans online can also offer powerful opportunities for learning. According to Jenkins (2008), as children desire to engage more deeply in their beloved stories, they are motivated to acquire new knowledge and refine their skills, such as writing and editing, to express their endeavors and unite with other fans. While writing about the story they love, children are encouraged to link the content to their life and holistically utilize the knowledge they previously obtained to reflect their experience critically (ibid). After receiving the writings, child editors will work with their mentors (professional editors working for the project) to ensure that the published content is well-rounded and understandable for a wider audience. This child-adult collaboration aims not only to help children develop their criticism and writing skills (the first goal) but also to make children’s opinions in their writings visible and inclusive (the second and third goals). Good quality writings are hoped to be role models for other children to express their political ideas more daringly and efficiently.
Secondly, the website operates like a catalog of reviewed items and children’s opinions where children’s writings are preserved and categorized according to their topics of oppression, the forms of material, the content genre, and the ages of their writers. This function makes children’s discussion easily accessible and visible across places and time (the second goal). The audience can use tags and keywords to find materials and discussions relevant to their topics of interest. They can either search for new materials to learn from or join the discussions on the items they have already engaged with by leaving comments on the page. As online contents are persistent, visible, sharable, and searchable regardless of time and place (boyd, 2014), both children and adults can learn from previous discussions and contribute their opinions at any time they prefer. Collective thinking, in which people build knowledge upon each other to reach an agreement, can strengthen children’s voices regarding oppression in a wider community (Freire, 1968). By showcasing children’s potentials in discussing politics, the website is hoped to lessen adults’ prejudice against children and promote child’s participation to become a social norm.
Thirdly, the website works as the facilitator of children’s political education and discussion. After logging in to the website, children can comment on a reviewed item and react to it through four buttons: “Share”, “Target”, “On it” and “Done”. The “Share” button allows children to share the writing on other SNS platforms and start discussions in their preferable individual spaces (e.g., Facebook, Line groups, Twitter, etc.) The “Target” button is supposed to be clicked by children who take interest in the item. The web admins will see who is interested in what item at what time. The participant demography of each item (e.g., gender, age, school, disability, etc.) will be analyzed to design suitable activities that promote learning experience in regard to the material. For instance, special promotion campaigns can be held to promote the materials not so popular amongst children. For the materials interested by many, the website can support their accessibility in several ways. If the item is a book that is out of print or has never been translated into Thai, the web admins can inform a publisher of the demand and open a pre-order for the re-print or translation. They can also suggest the publisher producing the e-book version and selling to the web users nationwide at a student price. The “On it” button and the “Done” button are supposed to be activated, respectively, by children who are currently engaging with the item and those who have finished it. These two functions are expected to encourage children’s commitment to read, watch, or play with the item. The website admins can invite these participants to further activities designed around the item, such as Zoom reading circles, fan competitions (fanfictions, fanart, etc.), game nights, meet and greet with writers, and many more. Participants of each item can suggest activities they want to host or participate in the comment section, and the admins will help them advertise and facilitate the events (e.g., by finding supporters and speakers from publishing houses, museums, libraries, bookshops, etc.). Despite aiming for children, the events are also open for adults to participate (e.g., parents and teachers), in hope that they will be inspired to use media items in starting more political discussion with children.
Plan
At the beginning of the project, I will work with a web designer and a pilot group of child users to make a test-run website and provide three sample reviews per week for 2 months (24 reviews) to set the theme and tone of communication that encourages child participation. After finishing setting up the standard, adjusting the web system, and gaining positive engagement from the child users, the website will start to hold some reading and gaming events for experimentation and publicity.
In the meantime, I will put up an advertisement to call for child writers, child editors, and professional editors (the children’s mentors). I expect to find child writers and editors in schools, online platforms for child writers (e.g., Dek-D, Tunwalai, ReadAWrite, etc.), young people’s e-magazines, and Facebook pages for parents. Child writers can submit their works through the website email and its submitting page. Child editors need to send in their application, study basic information on how to edit, and pass an editorial exam for children.
After passing the exam, child editors will meet their mentors to discuss their role and working time. They will schedule their publishing date (1 review per week for starter) and work together online through shared files. The publishing target can change due to the editors’ efficiency, the amounts of writings being sent in and the amount of money the project has for publication and employment. The website aims to accept works and applications from children and adult mentors all year round.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
In short, LITERARY REVOLUTION is a website designed to engage a wide range of child audience in regularly refining their critical thinking and communicative skills to participate in political conversations. It provides easy access to a variety of media about social justice and children’s opinions towards them. As children’s voices become persistently visible and sharable, they are likely to be studied and built on by other children and become present in adults’ circles. At the same time, it collects children’s data and interests to customarily facilitate their social learning experience through popular culture materials.
The project, however, can be obstructed from running sustainably in at least two aspects. The first one is the financial problem. Even though the website aims to earn from events organizing, advertisement, and shares from media copyrights and sales, these sources of income are not predictable, especially at the beginning of the project. Lacking funding, the website may also struggle in recruiting professional editors to mentor children in their free time. As children’s editors in Thailand generally earn little and work hard during the week, they might not be motivated enough to spare time for mentoring children. This problem may be solved in the long run if the website can promote senior child editors to be mentors for their juniors. It can also synthesize editorial know-hows and produce online learning materials for new child editors to study and improve skills independently without having an actual mentor.
The lack of funding can also pose a danger to the website in publishing the works of child writers and hiring child editors. To ensure that the website is not another form of child exploitation and oppression, children should be paid for their publication in a suitable amount. They are expected to learn from working with the project and remember it until they grow up and join the workforce, that their labor is appreciated and always entitled to payment. This acknowledgment is hoped to be instilled in children at their earliest age to put an end to the oppression of labor in Thailand. Child participants should also be invited to think of how to help to fundraise the project together with the web admins. This will give them opportunities to engage in real social participation to secure the space where their voices are strengthened and heard.
Apart from the financial problem, the project needs to carefully structure the relationship between children and their adult mentors to ensure a meaningful child-adult editorial collaboration and avoid any oppression that may occur in the team. The adult mentors should be clearly instructed that although they have the role to assess children’s works and finalize the publication, they must be honest in delivering children’s voices and must not impose their ideas on them. The rapport between child and adult participants need to be supported systematically to ensure that everyone will always respect each other’s opinions and decision, and support the freedom of speech in the team and everywhere.
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