About
The Four Kidlink Questions

Art by Jenny Henningsson (11) Sweden

Good afternoon to you all

I have been reading and approving Responses in Portuguese for Kidlink. Among the things I do for Kidlink nothing is more satisfactory than that. It always makes me think hard not as a professional educator but as a mother. I have teenage children and reading the Responses helps me to understand children in such a difficult phase of their formation.
I have been very happy to read the dialogs in Kidcafe and to be in touch with the youth at the chat. Nevertheless nothing is more rewarding than to read Responses as the one below written by a 10-year-old child. It brings hope to the future of our suffered world. If an adult assisted the child who wrote the message, how nice it is for a child to have this kind of advisor !
If the child wrote it alone what a special kid he is. How can one consider these kinds of Responses to  be dangerous ? A child, by expressing the ideas in written form, structures his thoughts and presents his position with respect to the world and other people. Furthermore it shows confidence because he is exposing himself to critics.
I think the Response is an important and positive point in Kidlink. It provides subsidies to professional educators and enriches the knowledge of Kidlink parents to help in the education of their children.

Aparecida Elizabeth Santos Silva
IRC KBr Manager, Brazil

The four Kidlink questions are, from my point of view, an entry door that without requiring a philosophical-pedagogical point of view (which would be complicated for a broad organization such as Kidlink) addresses specific points.

1. First there is the question of identity:
Having to express whom he or she is, the child looks at herself/himself as an individual, and perceives to be recognized by the institution as a subject. The child is not a number or a student. He or she is a person. By answering the first question the child talks about herself/himself both objectively (name, school, email, age, nationality etc) and subjectively (wishes, interests etc).

2. Second there is the question of development: by being asked to think about the future the child realizes she is part of a process and notes she/he has a number of choices to make.

3. Third, there is the issue of formation of a global conscience: the child is a person in a process in a world which is also in a process which is being modeled by social individuals through action; the reality that exists today (social, environmental, political etc) maybe modified; which changes would them be and which changes are desirable ?

4. Fourth, there is the invitation for the exercise of citizenship:
The idealized world, the world in process calls for commitment of the individual with the construction of the future reality; thinking globally the child is invited to act locally; he gets engaged in a multicultural process as a representative of a culture.

I believe this is the differential of Kidlink. The fact that the questions are a bit closed allows them to be equally absorbed by different educational institutions in different cultures.

Tania de Vasconcelos
KHouse Carioca Manager, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil