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Session 4. Action Competence and School and Mahalla Projects
Objective. Distinguish real action from activity, plan a small, safe, measurable school or mahalla project that pupils lead, and include permission, a baseline and reflection.
Many schools hold environmental events: a poster week, a tree day, a clean-up. They are cheerful, but pupils often cannot say what changed. Action competence is different: pupils investigate a real issue, decide what to do, do it and check whether it worked. This takes a few weeks rather than a day, and it can be small. In this lesson you learn how to choose a project that is safe, permitted, measurable and led by pupils.
Key ideas
What action competence is
- Action competence means being ready and able to take considered action on an issue. Jensen and Schnack describe it as built from knowledge, commitment, vision and experience of acting.
- Knowing about a problem is not enough, and pressing pupils to change their habits is not the aim. The aim is that pupils can think through a problem and decide what to do about it.
- An action tries to change a cause and checks the effect. An activity, such as a poster or a film, can inform but may change nothing.
A project cycle in five steps
- INVESTIGATE: find out the facts and the baseline. IMAGINE: describe a better situation. DECIDE: choose one realistic action and who does what.
- ACT: carry it out for a few weeks. REFLECT: measure again, ask what changed and what you would do differently.
- Do not skip investigate or reflect. Without the first, action is guesswork; without the second, pupils never learn whether it worked.
Choose small, safe and permitted
- Good projects fit in 4 to 8 weeks, cost almost nothing and take place in places you can supervise: school taps, the canteen, the school yard, a nearby mahalla garden.
- Get permission first: head teacher, parents when needed, the caretaker or mahalla committee. Check safety, especially with tools, traffic and waste.
- Pick something measurable: litres, kilograms, counts, minutes. A number before and after is the simplest evidence.
Pupils lead, you guide
- Let pupils choose among two or three options you have already checked as safe. Give real roles: data team, communication team, contact with adults.
- Do not let a project become adults doing a job for the camera. If pupils did not choose, plan and check, it is an event, not an action.
- Accept small results. Saving a little water and learning to measure is a real success. Share the result with the school or mahalla and say thank you.
The project cycle
Four tests for a real action
Ask four questions of any planned project. Did pupils help choose and plan it? Does it try to change a cause rather than only inform? Is there a number before and after? Will pupils reflect on what worked? A project that passes three or four is an action; one that passes none is an event. Events are not bad, but they are not what builds action competence.
Jensen and Schnack also note that action competence involves knowledge, commitment, vision and experience of acting. That means a successful small project teaches more than a failed large one, because pupils gain the experience of having acted and the confidence to try again.
Working with the mahalla
A mahalla project begins with listening. The UNDP blog on the Aral region describes responses that started from what communities said they needed. Visit or invite the mahalla committee, ask what matters to residents and which small step would help, and agree who gives permission and who will keep the result going after the pupils leave.
Plan around the calendar: cotton season, Navruz, exams and winter. Check safety, especially for tools, traffic and waste, and tell parents what pupils will do. Keep expectations modest and share results with residents; a short note of thanks is part of respectful community work.
Examples from the classroom
A water audit in Grade 8
Scene. In Fergana, Aziz's Grade 8 class chooses, from three options, to check dripping taps in the school. Pupils split into pairs, each pair takes one block, and for four mornings they time how long a bucket takes to fill under each dripping tap. They record the results, give the head teacher a one-page note with the three worst taps, and measure again after the caretaker repairs them.
Insight. A baseline, a proposal to the person who can decide, and a second measurement make a small project a true action.
Twenty trees, not three hundred
Scene. In Bukhara, Jasur's Grade 6 class first thinks of planting 300 saplings. After talking with the mahalla committee, pupils choose 20 trees for the school yard, make a watering rota with the caretaker's agreement, and check their survival every two weeks. At the end they report how many are alive and what they would change.
Insight. Smaller scope with permission, a care plan and pupil roles teaches more than a large one-day event.
Lights left on
Scene. In Tashkent, Malika's Grade 5 class counts how many empty classrooms have the lights on during the long break, every day for a week. They make a bar chart, design a small reminder sign for each door, and count again the following week. They show the two charts at the school assembly.
Insight. Even young pupils can run the full cycle when the issue is concrete and the measurement is a simple count.
Common pitfalls
- Choosing a project that is too big to finish in 4 to 8 weeks.
- Skipping permission or safety checks because 'it is only a small thing'.
- Letting adults do the work for the photograph while pupils watch.
- Never measuring again, so pupils cannot say whether anything changed.
Plan a One-Page Project
- Open the Activity Kit: three SAMPLE project proposals, a checklist and a one-page planning template.
- Pairs (10 min): use the checklist on the three proposals. Decide whether each is an action or an activity, and what is missing.
- Pairs (15 min): choose a school or mahalla issue from your own context and fill in the one-page template for a four-week project: goal, baseline, permission, pupil roles, steps, reflection.
- Groups (10 min): present your plan in one minute. Others ask: 'Who chooses? What will you measure? Who must agree?'
- Alone (5 min): write your classroom action task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which proposal looked good but was only an activity?
- Who must give permission for your project, and have you asked?
- What number will tell you in week four whether it worked?
Reflect
- Have you run a school project that was really an event? What would make it an action?
- What do pupils in your school already care enough about to act on?
- Who in the mahalla would be a good partner?
Try it tomorrow
- Pick a school measurement (taps, lights, bins) and ask one class to record a one-week baseline.
- Ask the head teacher or the mahalla committee what small action would be welcome.
- Write a one-page plan with goal, baseline, permission, pupil roles and a reflection date.
Further reading and links
Real action changes a cause and checks the effect: plan it small, safe and measurable, and let pupils lead.