Whether Valentine’s Day is your favourite or most loathed festival of the year there is no denying it has a big impact. Check out how big by taking a look at these Valentine's Day Statistics. Of course, not everyone celebrates love in the same way, or even on the same day, as this Guardian Datablog article explains.
In this feature we suggest some teaching ideas relating to love, marriage and the wider world. Given the content, please note, not all of these ideas are appropriate for very young children, but we have highlighted some primary resources that could be useful.
Topics covered
- Finding love
- Courtship and its rituals
- Marriage: rituals; good and bad aspects
- Love is all around... - outside the classroom
Curriculum links
- PSHE: love and personal relationships
- Citizenship: rights, equality
- Geography: sense of place, population
- RE: relationships and marriage, religious rituals
- History: social history
- Sociology: relationships and marriage
- Also as a theme in MFL, English, Art and Music
Finding love
Around the world people go to all kinds of lengths to find love. Each year, the County Clare town of Lisdoonvarna in Ireland hosts a matchmaking festival that’s become so popular it’s a now a big draw for tourists. If you’d rather vet your potential partner first, you could try a classified advert: in Indian papers people seek brides and grooms, believing love will grow after marriage; and the London Review of Books has famously witty adverts from people searching for love. Internet dating is now responsible for a third of all new relationships in the UK according to The Observer. This info-graphic offers a few "tips to game the system and meet your match" - what do your students think of these suggestions? Can they come up with more? How ethical is it to be 'economical with the truth'?Courtship
Once you’ve found that special person you might want to celebrate your love on Valentine’s Day, but before you rush to buy them flowers you could explore the impact of this gift. Students could use the following sources to discover the environmental and economic impact of a bunch of roses:- Drained of life - The Guardian
- A Thorny Issue - Should I buy A Valentine's rose? - KS3 Teachers Toolkit from the Geographical Association
- Flower Workers Lesson Plans - International Labor Rights Forum in the USA
Marriage
If you have made it past the hurdle of finding your loved one and survived the courting process the next step may be marriage. In Mexico they hold mass weddings for prison inmates in order to help ease their transition back into society. Check out this short film clip of one of the ceremonies. If you’re getting married in India or Japan, social pressures may cause you to hire some of your guests. Find out more in these articles- Wealthy Indians hire actors to masquerade as family wedding guests - The Guardian
- Fake guests hired to attend Japanese weddings - Telegraph
Love is all around...
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="167"] Love of nature by Glisglis - click to view on flickr.com[/caption] There are lots of naturally occurring ‘hearts’ in the world. Here are some photos celebrating the shape that has come to epitomise love:- Hearts of Nature group on Flickr
- Hearts of Nature set on Flickr
- Hearts in nature - naturally occurring and man-made heart shapes photographed from the air