“Raise Your Hand”: Red House’s new campaign gives students voice beyond the school walls

Aligned with the network´s pedagogical vision, the action gives prominence to students and invites them to respond to what moves them in the search for a better future; the chosen phrases will make up the institutional material.

This initiative is aligned with Red House´s pedagogical practice of placing students at the core of their educational process, encouraging students to actively take part in the construction of their own knowledge – and the school innovates once again by launching the campaign “Raise Your Hand”.

The action invites children to reflect on their own role in the world, and on what moves them in the search for a better future by answering in English, using up to four words, the following question: “What do you raise your hand for?”. The chosen phrases and their authors will make up the new Red House institutional campaign to be launched later this year.

As with Red House, the idea of the campaign is to give students a voice beyond the school walls, encouraging them to raise their hands for their own purposes and paths to a new tomorrow. The campaign emphasizes on students ´protagonism, which also takes place in the classrooms. By being the main learning agents, without focusing on memorization and avoiding the simple reproduction of contents, learning at Red House is more engaging and relevant.

Studies show up to 95% greater performance when students actively learn and are challenged to perform activities that involve researching, investigating, debating, pondering, creating hypotheses, acting on projects and developing solutions to real-life problems.

In addition to stimulating self-agency and building personal responsibility, another aspect present in participatory learning is the incentive to creativity since all pedagogical activities require students to create solutions and think outside the box. And when called upon to develop various group projects, other socio-emotional skills are also triggered, such as communication, collaboration, cooperation, leadership and empathy – essential competencies in students’ life.

In addition, autonomy and “learning to learn” is another educational benefit that drives students´ protagonism from an early age as they begin to understand how to learn, what works best in grasping concepts, and what enables them to apply such findings in everyday life, simultaneously generating knowledge and possibilities. In a very dynamic, fluid, changeable and accelerated world that constantly evolves. This skill set provides students with the flexibility to recycle their knowledge and to adapt quickly to new situations and demands, important differentials to meet the challenges of the 21st century.