Human Rights Educators: The Next
Generation!
by Karen Kraco
The Amnesty International group at Milton High School, located in a suburban town south of Boston, is evolving into a group of human rights educators. The group has chosen to make educating others about human rights a priority, visiting classrooms at all levels in the Milton Public Schools, as well as involving teachers, parents and community members in their events. The group has hosted speakers on human rights topics, and has planned two all-day human rights conferences. Some of the Milton High Amnesty Chapter�s activities are described below, followed by a discussion of strategies for preparing students to become skilled human rights educators.
From the group�s inception, the Milton chapter has been active in human rights education. They regularly give presentations to eighth-graders about Amnesty�s work, involving the students in letter-writing. The group also used the opportunity of Amnesty�s Holiday Card Actions to reach out to fifth-graders, teaching them about human rights and helping them write messages to prisoners of conscience on handmade cards. For a number of years group members have used the Spanish versions of Holiday Card Actions and Urgent Actions for presentations and activities in Spanish classes at the high school. For Human Rights Day, students have shown the animated Universal Declaration of Human Rights video in their social studies classes and have spoken about Amnesty�s mandate. In addition, the group has held an annual "Write On for Human Rights" event, an evening of letter-writing and guest speakers on human rights, to which parents and community members and high school and junior high students were invited.
These activities were successful in exposing others to basic human rights ideas and to Amnesty�s work. However, the group�s officers and their advisor were concerned about the depth of the group�s understanding of human rights issues. Many group members had difficulty fielding questions during their presentations or discussing the finer points of Amnesty�s work.
With the aim of giving group members a comprehensive understanding of human rights issues, the officers conceived the idea of holding an all-day human rights conference in Milton. They received permission from the principal to hold it on a school day, treating it as a field trip. A nearby church agreed to let the students use their facilities. With the help of Amnesty�s Northeast Regional Office staff, speakers and workshop leaders were identified who would work well with high school students. High school Amnesty groups in the area were invited, as were Milton High student leaders and other interested Milton students. The day�s program included sessions on Amnesty International�s history and mandate, the death penalty, women�s rights, human rights education, and child labor. Participants were given some choices of workshops. Time was set aside for letter-writing as well as for socializing.
The conference clearly energized the Milton High Group. Attendance and involvement grew. Presentations made in classes were clearly more informed than in previous years, and students in those classes responded by asking excellent questions that generated good discussion. Milton High Amnesty members also began to seek out opportunities on their own to spread what they know about human rights. Amnesty International was a topic of a number of presentations in speech classes; one student led a children�s service on human rights at her church. Several students brought up human rights issues at appropriate times in foreign language and social studies classes. Some sought out human rights materials to give to their teachers. Furthermore, the increased visibility and enthusiasm of Amnesty members in the school has fostered student and faculty interest in the activities of the group.
Last spring the group held its second all-day human rights conference, with the theme of human rights in Central America. In addition to speakers and actions on this topic, students new to Amnesty were required to attend a session on Amnesty International�s history and mandate. At the request of group members, an hour-and-a-half workshop on human rights education was presented by Janet Schmidt of Amnesty�s Human Rights Educators� Network. That session helped develop a strong group commitment to extending their human rights education efforts. Soon after, one group member was designated "Human Rights Education Officer," to coordinate human rights education activities.
Supporting Students as Human Rights Educators
The advisor plays a critical role in coaching students as they prepare to educate others. Of most importance is helping students design or choose workable activities. Many of the lessons in the Human Rights Here and Now section on the UDHR can be used by student educators. For example, the activity comparing the Bill of Rights to the UDHR, and the "Rights Around the World" activity are structured in such a way that students can carefully work them out in advance. In general, the less experienced the student educator, the better it is to have very structured lessons. When students become more experienced in the classroom, lessons that involve more free-ranging discussion can be tackled, with help from teachers.
For example, "Human Rights in the News," can generate discussion on a wide range of issues that student educators might have difficulty handling. In this activity the participants look for newspaper articles dealing with rights issues, and then classify them according to whether the rights described are being denied, upheld, promoted, or are in conflict. Student educators can find the articles ahead of time and become familiar with the rights issues before distributing them in a class.
In preparing student educators to go into the classroom, it is important that they first participate in the activity themselves, and then have a chance to practice the activity before a critical audience of other students. The teacher should play an active role, insisting that the students have written up their lessons and decided in advance the order and responsibilities of those presenting. In practice sessions the teacher can role-play potential questions and issues that might come up during the presentation, and make suggestions about classroom management, such as the appropriate time to pass out handouts, which the students might not have considered. The Milton High group has learned to structure classroom visits in such a way that relatively inexperienced group members can be involved and learn from students with more experience. It also is a good idea, if possible, to schedule multiple classroom visits so that the same groups of students can present the same activity more than once. They can then assess successes and shortcomings and adjust their approach accordingly.
Helping students become human rights educators requires significant time and effort for all those involved, but the rewards are numerous. In planning their lessons and visiting classrooms, Milton High students are gaining that deep understanding of their subject matter that comes only from teaching others. At the same time they are learning presentation skills and with their conference planning, administrative skills that will serve them well in the future. In addition to engaging the students they teach in thinking about human rights issues, the Amnesty members are role models for their peers and younger students. They also provide inspiration and resources for the faculty who agree to let them present in their classes. Human rights awareness and dialogue has increased in the Milton schools because of the efforts of these student educators.
In helping students become effective human rights educators, we have the opportunity to spread the message of human rights far and wide.
| Contact Karen Kraco at: 55 Allerton Road Milton, MA 02186 home phone: 617�696�2903 e-mail: [email protected] |
Karen Kraco is a member of the AIUSA Human Rights Educators� Network Steering Committee.
