Legal popularization essay for middle school students about today’s statement

Let every child bathe in the sunshine of the law

——Commemorating the second "12·4" National Legal Publicity Day

Cui Li Wang Haizhou Wang Yijun

Editor's Note

Young people are the hope and future of the country. The level of legal awareness and legal literacy of young people directly determines the future and destiny of governing the country according to law and building a socialist country ruled by law. Deng Xiaoping pointed out with far-sightedness, “Legal education must start from childhood.” In fact, from the beginning of the “First Five-Year Plan” to the “Fourth Five-Year Plan” of legal popularization, strengthening legal education and legal protection for young students has always been the focus of legal popularization work. The most important thing is that this has become the widespread political awareness and common action of all sectors of society.

On the occasion of the second "12·4" National Legal Propaganda Day, we launch this special edition. The fundamental purpose is to promote the Constitution, the fundamental law of the country, so that the people throughout the country can Basic legal concepts such as the awareness of citizens' rights and obligations at the core of the Constitution, equality before the law, abiding by laws, and acting in accordance with the law, are like spring breezes and rain, and they are gradually entering the minds and hearts of young students.

Legal education is integrated into the teaching system

October 25, Beijing. In an ordinary conference room, relevant leaders from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Central Comprehensive Management Office, the Youth League Central Committee and other departments were holding a meeting with the theme of strengthening legal education for teenagers.

What is quite eye-catching about this meeting is that not only were the Minister of Justice Zhang Fusen, the Minister of Education Chen Zhili, Director of the Central Comprehensive Management Office Chen Jiping, the Youth League Central Committee and other senior leaders all present, but at the same time, the meeting The content is also transmitted to branch venues across the country through television and telephone signals.

This conference conveyed an extremely important message: my country is working hard to build a progressive, scientific and reasonable legal education system from primary school to university. This extraordinary move means that the study of legal knowledge has been included in the compulsory courses in all types of schools at all levels, and the proportion of legal education in the knowledge structure of our country's students has been greatly increased.

What cannot be avoided is that the current legal awareness of young students in our country is worrying. A survey shows that only 24.7% and 16.4% of Chinese middle school students have a basic understanding of the "Law on the Protection of Minors" and the "Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency" respectively. In this regard, Zhang Panshi, vice president of the China Juvenile Delinquency Research Association, pointed out that middle school students still know very little about these two laws that are closely related to their rights and obligations. This reflects from one aspect the current level of legal knowledge, legal awareness and legal literacy of our country's juveniles. Still needs to be comprehensively improved.

Teenagers account for a large proportion of the population in our country, with more than 240 million students at all levels and types in schools. Adolescents are in the stage of physical and psychological growth and development. They have poor ability to distinguish right from wrong, weak self-control ability, strong plasticity, and are easily affected by various negative factors. At present, the problem of juvenile delinquency and crime is still quite prominent. Youth gang crimes and organized crimes are increasing, the degree of violence is intensifying, and the age of crime is also getting younger. Among them, the weak concept of the rule of law is an important reason for juvenile crimes.

Facing the present is to forge the future. In order to effectively strengthen the legal education of young students, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Central Comprehensive Management Office, and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League recently jointly issued the "Several Opinions on Strengthening the Legal Education of Young Students." The "Opinions" focus on outlining the composition of my country's legal education system, that is, primary school legal education mainly provides legal enlightenment education to students, cultivating students' patriotism awareness, traffic safety awareness, environmental awareness, self-protection awareness and the ability to distinguish right from wrong; secondary school legal education It is necessary to focus on educating the concepts of socialist democracy and rule of law, enhance students' awareness of the country, rights and obligations, and awareness of law-abiding use, improve self-discipline and self-protection capabilities, and prevent and reduce illegal and criminal activities. Technical secondary schools, vocational schools and technical schools should highlight legal knowledge education related to professional knowledge and labor protection; university legal education should highlight the study of basic modern legal theories and the theory and practice of governing the country according to law, and master civil laws and market economy laws. and basic knowledge of WTO rules, and establish awareness of the constitution, awareness of reciprocity of rights and obligations, and awareness of acting in accordance with the law.

What is particularly important is that in the future, the status of legal education will be included in the evaluation system of school education quality and students' comprehensive quality. The "four implementations" of legal education plans, teaching materials, class hours, and teachers will also be used to evaluate school work. important content. At the same time, students' ability to study and abide by laws will also be included in assessments for further education, admissions, job recruitment, and military service.

Relevant people believe that the issuance of this "Opinion" shows that my country's youth legal education has been elevated to a scientific, institutionalized and standardized level. This is a wise and strategic measure to build a country ruled by law.

A comprehensive and three-dimensional legal education network for young people is being constructed and woven throughout the country.

Judicial workers go to the front line of teaching

Fang Jiayan, prosecutor of Changping District, Beijing, also has a position as a school legal counselor. She is often invited to teach legal classes in middle schools.

Once, Fang Jiayan went to a middle school to teach a legal class. As soon as she walked to the school gate, she saw a group of fifteen or sixteen-year-old male students gathered around, staring at each other, and some even shouted: "See you after school. We're not done yet. You and I are not here." Fang Jiayan was about to step forward when the bell rang and the students all gathered in the classroom to listen to Fang Jiayan's legal class.

Prosecutor Fang could never let go of the quarreling children. During her lecture, she specifically cited examples of students quarreling and causing tragic disasters.

She said that if there are conflicts between classmates, they must learn to communicate, understand and accommodate each other, and must not act out of anger and get into fights. The consequences of this kind of temporary hot-headedness will not only cause harm to classmates, but also cause huge pain to schools and parents.

She warned earnestly: "Children, you must have the string of 'Dharma' in your mind at all times!" Fang Jiayan's eyes slid over each student's face with concern.

After class, the boys gathered around and said with red faces: "Auntie, the cases of middle school students you just talked about let us know what illegal crimes are. We don't want to embark on the road of crime. Then It's terrible. Now we know what to do." The boys held hands together.

At that moment, Fang Jiayan felt that all the fatigue and worries had turned into relief. This also made Fang Jiayan even more enthusiastic about her "amateur" position as a legal counselor.

Currently, legal counselors and legal vice principals like Prosecutor Fang Jiayan are active in primary and secondary schools across the country.

The vice-presidents of legal affairs and legal counselors are mostly people from the political and legal front lines. They have good legal knowledge and can use the school's specific cultural communication space to cooperate with the school to provide students with diverse and targeted legal education. It has played an irreplaceable role in enhancing the legal concept of primary and secondary school students, preventing juvenile crimes and comprehensively managing the surrounding environment of the campus, and has become a landscape of youth legal education in recent years.

However, it cannot be ignored that the current setting of legal vice principals and legal counselors still has many limitations, such as lack of planning and pertinence in work, single working methods and teaching content, and lack of effective communication with the school. Two-way communication, loose connections, unclear responsibilities of the Vice President for Legal Affairs, etc.

Tong Lihua, director of the Juvenile Legal Aid and Research Center, said that because the legal vice principals and legal counselors are very busy with their own work, they cannot be in school every day and have little time to contact students, and their usual legal work focuses on It is not necessarily related to minors. Furthermore, because their position as vice principal of legal affairs is not fixed, changes in work and position will affect the long-term development of legal education in schools. Recently, the Haidian District Education Commission, in consultation with the Juvenile Legal Aid and Research Center, jointly launched the "Primary and Secondary School Legal Teacher Training Project" with the goal of focusing on training primary and secondary schools' own legal teachers. It has been initially decided to provide training programs for every secondary school in Haidian District. A primary school trains a law teacher.

The training content mainly includes laws related to minors, legal education on the rights and obligations of minors, prevention of minor crimes, how to avoid the occurrence of campus injury accidents and handling procedures, so that legal teachers can take on the responsibility of the school. Responsibilities for legal education and handling of daily legal issues on campus.

A teacher who received the training said that after we have received systematic legal professional training, if we give legal courses to students, we will not learn what we have learned or sell what we have learned from the book as before. "I believe the students' legal class will be more exciting." The teacher was full of confidence.

From passive acceptance to active participation

Interest is the best teacher. Only by adopting various lively and popular legal education activities that adapt to the characteristics of young students can they be easily accepted by students.

The students walked out of the classroom and actively carried out social practice, opening up a broad space for the "second classroom" of legal education.

In a legal knowledge class at Dalian Yuwen Middle School, the students held a mock court that had been carefully prepared for a month. This court case is about how to determine self-defense. The case sounds very professional, but the students pretended to be the prosecution and defense, citing criminal law from time to time, and the debate was very fierce. The students who were watching were deeply attracted and actively used their brains to analyze the case and compare the laws.

Mock court classes like this are being performed more and more in classrooms. With its intuitive, participatory and lively characteristics, it has become an effective form of popularizing legal knowledge among young students. .

Various vivid and colorful legal "second classrooms" are widely carried out in schools across the country.

Some schools use extracurricular activities, themed class meetings, special lectures and other forms to continuously expand students’ legal knowledge; some schools increase students’ legal knowledge by carrying out activities such as essay writing on law and usage, knowledge competitions, and moot courts. Through participation, students can gain more experience in legal practice; some organize to observe court hearings, visit prisons and labor camps, and make students feel the justice and majesty of the law through vivid and specific cases and the personal statements of the parties.

Schools in various places have also built a number of juvenile law schools, juvenile legal education bases, legal service hotlines, etc. based on actual conditions. These activities have become new carriers to attract young people to learn legal knowledge and participate in social legal practice.

According to reports, since the country’s first juvenile law school was officially established in August last year, many regions across the country have launched comprehensive activities to establish juvenile law schools. According to incomplete statistics, more than 3,000 community juvenile law schools have been established across the country, training nearly 4 million teenagers.

A survey shows that the form of learning legal knowledge expected by middle school students is mainly participatory, such as understanding cases, mooting courts, classroom debates and discussions with classmates, visiting exhibitions, etc., with the proportion as high as 70.7%.

In this regard, Zhang Panshi, vice president, secretary-general and researcher of the China Juvenile Delinquency Research Association, analyzed that this shows that students hope to actively acquire legal knowledge in the form of subject participation, so that they can integrate into In the reality of the real society, grasping the fate of the future legal society is exactly in line with the requirements of the real society for the comprehensive quality education and training of students.

In Guangdong Province, a series of "Four Ones" activities were carried out across the province: creating a legal education sketch drama, organizing a legal knowledge competition, conducting an essay competition with prizes, and compiling and printing A comic book. ***More than 8 million students participated in the event, and the skits toured the province for 100 performances, with every venue sold out.

In Zhejiang Province, campus cultural activities are used as an effective carrier of legal education to increase students' interest and enthusiasm in learning law. On the one hand, they make full use of the school's most conventional publicity positions such as window displays, blackboard newspapers, and wall posters to popularize legal knowledge; on the other hand, they organize law-study interest groups through the "Red Scarf Legal School", "Juvenile Police School", and "Youth Law School" "" and other relatively fixed legal education bases regularly carry out various activities such as legal lectures, legal knowledge competitions, and legal summer camps.

In Tianjin, this year’s essay contest on “Strive to Become a Law-abiding Citizen” was held among students in primary, secondary and vocational schools in the city, and more than 100,000 essays were received.

During last year’s “12·4” Legal Publicity Day, Tanggu District held a self-compiled “Legal Newspaper” competition for primary and secondary school students. More than 60,000 primary and secondary school students in the district participated in the production.*** More than 3,000 entries with rich pictures, texts, and rich content were submitted and displayed in the 40-meter-long glass window of Century Plaza, forming a unique "French Education Corridor." In October 1999, the Central Comprehensive Management Office, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League jointly sponsored an exhibition on juvenile crime prevention entitled "For Tomorrow", which attracted widespread attention from the society. This exhibition attracted more than 1 million young students and teachers.

Legal experts pointed out that the form of legal education should change from simple teaching methods, and the content should be combined with things that children can feel, and legal knowledge should be explained in a simple and profound way through a series of legal practice activities that are easy for students to accept. It can be integrated into the social life that students are familiar with, turning legal education into a vivid and intuitive life experience, so that legal knowledge and awareness can be naturally integrated into students' minds and lives.

Recently, the large-scale "Billions of Youth Legal Education Campaign" jointly organized by the China Care for the Next Generation Working Committee and the Office of the Central Commission for Comprehensive Public Security Management was officially launched. This activity will last for three years, with special emphasis on Based on the characteristics of young people, we organize legal popularization forums, legal popularization contests, essay contests, legal popularization summer camps and large-scale legal popularization evening parties to vigorously promote the theme of "caring for youth and walking with the law."

"The law is around everyone"

At the launching ceremony of the "Care for Youth, Walk with the Law" campaign to popularize the law among hundreds of millions of young people, Sa Bei, host of CCTV's legal column Ning told a story.

During last year’s “December 4” National Legal Publicity Day, CCTV’s “Today’s Statement” produced a program about a teenage girl who was raped, but the gangster could not be brought to justice. . His father angrily ran to kill the man and ended up in jail. When the reporter came to interview, the weak girl lay on the bed from beginning to end, narrating with her back to the camera.

When the interview ended and the reporter walked out of the village, a reporter turned his head involuntarily and suddenly saw the girl leaning against the door, watching the reporter. In the rain and fog, the girl's smiling face was blurry, but it was clearly imprinted on the reporter's mind.

Sa Beining said that for this girl who had suffered great physical and mental trauma, only the law was her entire support and hope for her future life.

Legal experts pointed out that on the one hand, the phenomenon of juvenile crimes is still relatively prominent. On the other hand, illegal crimes that infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of juveniles and destroy their growth environment are also on the rise. Teenagers, especially school students, are a vulnerable group. They are often the targets of criminals. Therefore, legal education for teenage students must not only make them understand and abide by the law, but also train them to know how to use legal weapons to protect their legitimate rights and interests. , improve their self-prevention capabilities, and then grow into qualified citizens with good legal qualities.

In response to this, local Youth League organizations have mobilized all sectors of society to hold various youth self-care schools, training classes, and training camps. They have invited experts to teach, video observations, simulated scenario training, etc. to popularize it among young people. Self-protection knowledge and self-protection skills are taught to educate students to reject temptation, stay away from danger, and prevent harm.

In July 2001, the Youth League Central Committee, the Leading Group for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency and Crime of the Central Comprehensive Management Committee, and the China Youth Daily jointly sponsored the "My Self-Protection Experience" essay competition. The event received widespread attention and enthusiastic participation from young people across the country, with more than 5,000 essays received from 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities across the country. The students narrated their self-protection experiences in the process of learning and using the law through vivid and lively writing, including "precautionary awareness helped me escape from the clutches of the devil", "using the law to say 'no' to private bosses", and some using "Consumption" Some bought themselves new shoes through the Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Investors, and some used the law they learned to start a lawsuit with their father... Through their own experiences, the students truly felt the power of the law.

Qin Xue, a sixth-grade student at the No. 1 Primary School in Hutubi County, Xinjiang, is a "good boy in learning and using the law." She saw that the school was located in a busy area with many cars and many primary school students did not listen to the school's advice to ride bicycles to school.

Qin Xue found the "Road Traffic Management Regulations" and told the students that the regulations stipulated that "children under the age of 12 are not allowed to ride bicycles on the road." She said seriously that the law tells us what we should not do. If everyone does not abide by the rules, it will cause inconvenience to themselves and others, and even cause harm. The students were really convinced when they saw that even riding bicycles was regulated in the law. Once, after school, a strange man told Xiaoling, a female classmate in the class, that his father had been injured and wanted to take her away. Qin Xue stopped Xiaoling and said that she couldn't go with him and should call home first to find out the situation. When the man heard this, he ran away in despair. It was only later that I learned that there was no such thing as Xiaoling’s father being injured. The classmates all gave Qin Xue a thumbs up.

"Primary school students should know the importance of learning and abiding by the law from an early age. They should be calm and calm when encountering problems, learn to use the law to protect themselves, and stay away from harm and crime." Qin Xue wants to tell everyone with her own experience: " The law is not profound at all, it is actually around everyone’s life.”

Five plus two no longer equals zero

Teachers often lament that the educational environment in which students now live is increasingly changing. It is complex and has strong influences from all aspects of society. Some people compare it to "five plus two equals zero", which means that the five days of education students receive at school and the two days of contact at home and in society on Saturdays and Sundays are in vain. Yan Xiaodong, director of the Education Department of Dongzhimen Middle School in Beijing, said that our school can ensure adequate education and publicity for students, but what should we do beyond 8 hours? "Providing legal education to students is not only the responsibility of the school, but also the responsibility of the whole society." Yan Xiaodong said. Building a good space and atmosphere for young people to learn and use Fa is inseparable from the community and family.

In the Taoranting community in Beijing, a "Legal Popularization Team" consisting of more than 100 minors is active. Not only are they good young people who know and abide by the law, they also introduce the legal knowledge they learned in community youth law schools to community members. This law popularization team also serves as a supervisor of "illegal activities" in the community, reporting violations of minors' rights in the community to relevant departments in a timely manner.

Xiao Linli (pseudonym), a child from a divorced family, is usually very lively, but for a period of time she suddenly became grumpy. This abnormal phenomenon attracted the attention of the community supervisors, who informed the volunteer teachers of the community law school about the situation. Under the guidance of a volunteer teacher, Xiao Linli told the truth: one night she was raped by her drunken father. After many heart-to-heart talks, Xiao Linli finally bravely reported her father's behavior to the public security organs with the help of the community law school. Xiao Linli's father was sentenced to 16 years in prison according to law. "Promoting juvenile law in the community cannot just allow children to accept it passively and rigidly. It must also allow children to use the law to protect themselves and others' legitimate rights and interests after they have basically mastered the relevant laws." Taoranting Street Office Youth League Working Committee Secretary Cui Weiguo said: "To carry out legal education for community youth, we must mobilize the enthusiasm of children to popularize the law. The impact of children's active participation is huge."

In order to truly achieve the goal of educating community youth To achieve the effect of popularizing the law, Taoranting Community Juvenile Law School also introduced "outside brains" to create a good atmosphere for scientific popularization and usage of the law.

In June of this year, more than 100 legal experts and workers were hired by Beijing Taoranting Community Juvenile Law School as members of the volunteer lecturer group. Among them are university law professors, college students, judges, prosecutors, The police and, most notably, 10 taxi drivers were also among them. These 10 taxi drivers regularly study relevant traffic laws with minors in the community, and use their own experiences to help children master traffic laws and strengthen their awareness of traffic safety.

Gu Lihong is the secretary of the Youth League Working Committee of Longbai Street, Minhang District, Shanghai, and the principal of the Youth Law School in his community.

He told a reporter a story. Some time ago, the law school learned through the hotline that a young man named Chen, who lives in Hangsi Village, had been involved in bad behaviors such as running away from night and extortion when he was in elementary school because his parents divorced when he was young and he lacked family care. He dropped out of school before graduating from middle school and later became involved in criminal activities such as theft. "For such a young man, we can only use love to influence him and use the legal system to help him." Community law schools began to play a role.

Two key students from the community law school became good friends with Xiao Chen under the "instruction" of the school. They tutored Xiao Chen in cultural studies and took Xiao Chen to attend classes at the community law school on time. Later, Xiao Chen found a satisfactory job with the help of the street. Xiao Chen can often be seen in various activities of community law schools.

Students’ parents are their children’s shadows and enlightenment teachers. Their words and deeds will directly affect whether their children can grow up healthily. Therefore, while helping students learn the law, community juvenile law schools must also strengthen their supervision. Legal education for parents.

Many community law schools offer short-term legal training courses for parents. Minhang Longbai Subdistrict Community Juvenile Law School distributes learning and promotional materials on "How to Be a Qualified Guardian" compiled by the law school itself to parents. Some community law schools also carry out home visits for some problem families to provide close guidance. Community law schools gradually improve parents’ legal awareness through various channels.

A survey shows that only 11.9% of students believe that family is one of the ways for them to learn legal knowledge. But this does not mean that the family is unimportant in the formation of middle school students' legal awareness. It is just because the legal knowledge education that parents give their children is only a simple understanding, and parents generally do not use legal provisions or serious case analysis.

Zhang Panshi, vice president, secretary-general and researcher of the China Juvenile Delinquency Research Association, believes that families are the group that has the closest relationship with middle school students and has a profound impact on middle school students. The strength of parents' legal awareness has an important impact on their children. Therefore, strengthening legal education for parents and improving parents' legal awareness is an important aspect of legal education for teenagers.

As early as 1997, Xiamen City launched the “Students Bring the Fa Home” campaign. According to the students' different age groups, they asked students to write legal provisions such as the Law on the Protection of Minors and the Law on Compulsory Education in special notebooks to take home and publicize to their parents. After several years of exploration, this work has embarked on a sound development path of diversified forms, standardized activities, and regular inspection and supervision.

Guangxi Liuzhou No. 17 Middle School has opened a juvenile law school and established a community family education network to provide legal education to parents, which has benefited families a lot. Some parents said that in the past we thought that children were our own and it was our own business to send them to school or not. Now we realize that not sending children of school age to school is an illegal act. Some parents said that in the past, they felt that their children were their own children and that they could not be controlled by others if they were disobedient. Now they know that beating and scolding children is against the law and is not conducive to the healthy physical and mental growth of children. Some parents said that they used to be busy with business and would often send their children to storefronts or stalls to help sell things to make money. But now they know that this is wrong.

Organically combine family education, school education and social education to form a legal education network covering the entire growth environment of young people, creating a healthy three-dimensional space for students’ legal education, so that students can learn at different times and in different situations. A strong atmosphere of the rule of law can be felt in all locations and among different groups of people, which is a long-term task facing young people to popularize the law. Letting every child grow up healthily in the sunshine of the law is undoubtedly a fundamental project that will shape the future society governed by law.

Source: "China Youth Daily" December 4, 2002