| Contents |
Chapter 1... | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Appendix 1 |
| Appendix 2 part 1 | Appendix 2 part 2 | Appendix 2 part 3 |

Chapter One

What this manual is (and what it is not)

Human rights are very comprehensive. They cover a wide range of specific issues. At heart, however, they ask one simple question: what can I, as a human being, ask of others because I am that--a human being? The complementary side of this coin, of course, is: what can others ask of me by sole virtue of our shared humanity? To claim human rights is to accept their converse-human responsibility.

This manual provides practical activities for teachers in upper primary and secondary schools who want to foster a respect for human rights. It replaces the first edition of Teaching for human rights: activities for schools, by Ralph Pettman, though there is no sadness about the passing since the original version was meant to be quickly superseded. We expected to develop and change it in response to advice from teachers, students, parents and other people who had used it and seen it being used. And this is what has happened. However Teaching for human rights, in this new edition, is not the end either. It is simply a new starting point, albeit one step further along the way.

TEACHING FOR AND TEACHING ABOUT
Central to this manual is the finding that teaching about human rights is not enough. Teaching for human rights is essential to be effective. Students will want not only to learn what human rights are, but why they should respect them. What students do will be crucial in this regard. Herbert Kohl's advice here is to:

Actions speak louder than words. That is why the main part of the text consists of activities. The activities are meant to provide experiences, to create opportunities for students and teachers to work out from the basic values that inform specific human rights principles-values to do with justice, freedom, equity, and the destructive character of deprivation, suffering and pain-what they truly think and feel about a wide range of real world issues. (See further D. Wolsk, An experience-centred curriculum, Educational Studies and Documents no. 17, UNESCO, 1975.) This is moral literacy, i.e. the educated capacity for making responsible and rightful judgments. It is not only vital to human survival, but makes everything else done at,school, like learning to read and write and reckon, more relevant and effective too.

Close reference is made to the United Nations Universal declaration of human rights, so that what is done can be assessed in the light of the ideas and sentiments it lists. It is important to note that,these have received near universal recognition.

TEACHING NOT PREACHING
The fact of virtual global agreement about the principles contained in the United Nations Declaration is a teacher's first defence against any charge of indoctrination. By working with precepts that have been so widely endorsed-in principle if not in practice-for so many-years now, the teacher can honestly say that he or she is not preaching.

A second defence against the charge of indoctrination is to teach in such a way as to respect human rights in the classroom and the school environment itself.

This means avoiding structural hypocrisy. At its simplest, structural hypocrisy refers to situations where what a teacher is teaching is clearly at odds with how he or she is teaching it. For example: 'Today we are going to talk about freedom of expression--stop talking in the back row!' Students will learn a good deal about power this way, and considerably less about human rights. Students are not foolish and they spend a good deal of time studying teachers--probably more than teachers spend studying them. They understand the contradiction when a teacher professes justice and respect for others and yet treats them unfairly and disrespectfully.

Such a skill can have unexpected results. It can make it difficult for a teacher to have any effect, since students who have developed a good understanding of what their teachers believe can make the kind of allowances for these beliefs that prove very frustrating in practice. This can work both ways. They can treat what is taught with dumb insolence, for example. Or because of the desire to please, they may try to mirror a teacher's personal views, without thinking for themselves. These can be good reasons, at the beginning at least, for not expressing your own ideas. The students will work these out anyway in time, which is why it is important to subject your opinions to the same truth criteria as their own.

At its most complex structural hypocrisy raises profound questions about how to protect and promote the human dignity of both teachers and students in a place called a classroom, in a place called a school, within a society at large. On the one hand, schools are often highly hierarchic. They mirror most societies in this regard. On the other hand, the human rights doctrine is an egalitarian one. This calls upon teachers to involve all concerned--students, parents, school administrators, education authorities, and ancillary staff where possible--in the process of deciding what to do, how to do it, and why. There are many potential tensions here between the way schools are and the way they might be.

Ian Lister has proposed the following guidelines for a human rights school. The standards he suggests are tentative ones, nevertheless they are a good set of starting points for any school community that would live by humane principles. Like human rights themselves they represent good intentions. Although aspiration is always likely to outstrip achievement, they are standards worth striving for:

Some brief guidelines for the Human Rights school:

(i)	its general structures and practices will reflect a concern for the procedural values which underpin Human Rights-freedom, toleration, fairness and respect for truth and for reasoning;
(ii)	it will respect the rights and fundamental freedoms of all its members, including the students, acknowledging that the members have these rights and fundamental freedoms by virtue of their common humanity;
(iii)	all are entitled to these rights and freedoms because of their common humanity, and there will be no discrimination against anyone on grounds of race, religion, social class or gender. In particular, the Human Rights school will regard and respect children and women as part of common humanity. It will guard against 'unconscious' or 'unintentional' racism and sexism;
(iv)	no one in the school should be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
(v)	any punishment must be preceded by due process and a fair hearing;
(vi)	everyone will have the right of freedom of opinion and expression, and of peaceful assembly and association. Students will be able to form, and belong to, issue-related groups which respect the ideals and procedures of Human Rights;
(vii)	the education practised by the school of Human Rights will be directed to the full development of the human personality, and will show a concern for brain and hand, and for intellect and emotions;
(iix)	through its structures and its curriculum, the Human Rights school will promote understanding, tolerance and friendship between people of different national, ethnic or religious groups and a concern for the maintenance of peace. It will help its students to acquire the attitudes and skills necessary to facilitate peaceful social change;
(ix)	it will recognise that everyone has duties and obligations, as well as rights and freedoms, and that these will include duties to the community and obligations to respect the rights and freedoms of others;
(x)	It will be aware of the relationship of rights and freedoms and duties and obligations, and that the relationship between the rights and freedoms of one (or of one group) and the rights and freedoms of another (or of another group) may be contentious issues. The Human Rights school will not be without-or seek to be without-conflicts and issues, for they are an essential element in political and social change.

However, the Human Rights school will have the procedures to enable conflicts and issues to make a productive and positive contribution to its reformation, and a dialectic to facilitate its own development.
(Ian Lister, Teaching and learning about human rights, School Education Division, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 1984.)

Debney Park High School in Melbourne has documented very closely one thorough-going experiment of this kind and what is more, has published the results. Its booklet and video are highly recommended, and are available directly from the school, or the Richmond Education Centre, 123 Church Street, Richmond, Vic. 3121. As a practical manual on how to proceed, they speak volumes.

Where possible, an open forum should be held involving all the people mentioned above. This can solve many potential problems, and win many firm supporters. Teaching for human rights can reach out in this way beyond the classroom and into the community to the benefit of both. All concerned will be able to discuss the difference between objectivity and value neutrality. Though neither is possible in theory, schools can foster decent values rather than destructive and deceitful ones in practice. Members of school communities will usually appreciate the chance to take part in this process. An important consideration in any educational program that takes human rights seriously, in other words, is recognition of the rights of parents in particular to be involved in the education of their children. Increased parent participation in school affairs is one logical avenue through which to approach increased respect for human rights. 

Keeping school materials constantly under review, the curriculum itself, and your own classroom practice, is crucial. As far as the students are concerned, negotiating a set of classroom rules and responsibilities is a long-tested and very effective place to start, and an example is given in the text. Any teaching practice that is compatible with basic human rights, however, will be a model of what the doctrine means. This enables a mathematics teacher, for example, to teach for human rights even though the subject matter he or she is teaching may have little to do with real-world human rights issues. By being conscious of how she or he attends to her or his students; by ensuring that one category of students is not given more access to scarce resources than another; by encouraging responsibility and mutual regard; a mathematics (or physics or any other teacher) can show that fairness, non-discrimination and tolerance are just as important in that specialty as they are in social studies or the humanities. 

ARRIVING AT MINIMUM STANDARDS 
The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights did not arrive by accident. It was argued for by those convinced that a concrete list of basic criteria common,to all value systems worthy of the name was both possible and necessary. The list, where not universal, is potentially so. 

This manual views human rights not as a new system that seeks to replace those already so widely regarded in the world, but rather as an on-going attempt to define a minimum standard without which human dignity and decency are destroyed. As such, the human rights doctrine can demonstrate the strengths of all other existing value systems. 

The history of the human rights doctrine tells a detailed story of the attempts made to define our most fundamental entitlements. These efforts continue to this day. You may want to include an account of this history as an essential part of human rights teaching, and it can be made progressively more sophisticated as students become older and more able to understand it. The early fights for civil and political rights, the campaign for the abolition of slavery, the fight for economic and social rights in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, the struggle against twentieth century fascism, World War II and how it finally prompted a Universal declaration of human rights, two consequent Covenants, and all the regional Conventions and Charters that followed this lead-all these events provide vital information. 

A history of human rights legislation can be very difficult to bring alive in the classroom however. This is particularly so when it is presented as an historical one-way street. The same applies to teaching human rights as preferred standards per se, working through the Universal Declaration for example, while pointing out the rationale for each article (with illustrative examples from the real world, perhaps). 

'Facts' and 'fundamentals' are not enough, even the best-selected ones. Students will want a feel for these things and the real life questions they raise if they are to have more than passing significance. Hence the importance of having students exercise their own sense of justice, freedom and equity. 
How can this be done? Here is one example: 'Imagine', you say, 'that it is your job to draft the basic principles for society as a whole. The society includes you, though (and this is the catch) you don't know what kind of person you are. You might be male or female, young or old, rich or poor, disabled in some way, or living as a member of any contemporary nation, race, ethnic group, religion or culture that is not your own. You simply don't know. Now--what do you decree?' 

To perform this classic exercise is to arrive at one's own declaration of human rights. It has to be done honestly, or students may simply repeat what they say they 'know' without reflection. It may demand more empathy and imagination than is available at the time. But the point is clear. It can prompt some hard thinking about what 'human' means. (This is not as obvious as it may sound. The whole history of human rights has been, in part, the extension of the mantle of humanity to cover more and more people not considered wholly 'human' before. To treat a person as a thing and not a human being; to use people as means to other ends rather than as ends in themselves; this is to deny the essential spirit of the doctrine.) It can prompt some hard thinking also about the difference between right treatment and wrong treatment, between good behaviour and bad. 

THINKING THINGS THROUGH 
While the basic principles of human rights do receive the sanction of the world's main religions, they are secular concepts and will survive only if people continue to see a point in their doing so. They need to be constantly defended, refined, and reviewed. Rights-talk is strong talk, because rights-claims are strong claims. 'I have a right to this. It is not just what I want, or need. I am entitled to it. There is a responsibility to be met.' But rights stand upon the reasons given for them, and because rights-talk is strong talk, the reasons must be good ones. We have to have the chance--and where better than at school--to work out such reasons for ourselves, or we will not claim our rights when they are withheld or taken away, nor will we feel the need to meet legitimate rights-claims made upon us. We have to see for ourselves why rights are so important, for this in turn fosters responsibility. 

It is always possible to proceed the other way around: to teach for human rights in terms of responsibilities first. But again, this can't be done as a litany if students are to see their point. Another way to begin is to challenge students to consider something they could actually do in their classroom or in their school to improve respect for human rights. In one primary class where this was tried, students initially suggested things others should do. However, when pressed to offer suggestions about what they themselves could do, either individually or in groups, they came up with ideas such as: 

• I could say less, and give others the chance to say more; 
• I could have more to say; 
• I could give my opinions in discussions like others do; 
• I could be friendlier to more people;
• I could stop putting others down;
• I could do more to help my class run better- I think I leave it all up to Mr C. [the teacher] when I know I could do more. 

Students (and their teachers too) might prepare private contracts, implement their action plans for a week, then share their plans and discuss the difference their changes have made to the classroom's or school's quality of life. By such means students, can be brought to see that it is they in part who make, and can contribute to remaking, the institutions in which they live. 

Teachers and students then practise these principles. This is more than merely mouthing or mimicking them. We also need practice in the skills we require to resolve the problems that occur when responsibilities conflict, or rights conflict, as they often do. 

These points of conflict are growth points. They are welcome because without them human rights would not be dynamic. They would become static and stereotyped. They would become formal and inappropriate, and they would die. As it is, we are never short of controversies.. We should expect them, and provide the sort of learning opportunities that encourage students to face them creatively. 

IN PRACTICE . . . 
This manual is a multi-coloured umbrella that covers a number of basic issue- areas. It is not meant to be an extra burden on an already overloaded curriculum, but a way of suggesting different emphases, of integrating subjects that may already be taught there, and perhaps, most importantly, of initiating practical studies of how people presently treat each other in school, and how they might strive to improve the quality of their lives. 

It covers twelve basic human rights issue-areas. Each issue-area has been defined in terms of particular questions, and the activities below are keyed to these questions. In doing the activities, the questions get raised, answers are discussed, and this leads back to the human rights involved. You may want to develop other activities or other issue-areas. You will certainly find other ways of using the ones suggested here. 

Ideally human rights should be negotiated as the basis for the whole school curriculum--overt and covert--but in practice, particularly at secondary level, they are often treated piece meal, as part of the established disciplines within the social and economic sciences and the humanities. Treating human rights on 'Tuesdays after lunch' may be better than nothing at all, but it is not ideal. 

Democratic classrooms in democratic schools have established procedures for moving from teacher-directed to student-initiated enquiry, and democracy lies at the heart of human rights. Some schools that took part in the Human Rights Commission's 1985 program were able to turn themselves entirely around in line with documents like that of the United Nations Declaration of the rights of the child. They were the ones that learned most about humane values and humane behaviour. This is ideal. 

The activities suggested below will work differently at different school levels and, of course, every class is different, even from one moment to the next. Those who have already used these activities have said that decisions they made in advance about what would not work at their level or with their students were usually wrong. This is worth keeping in mind. It suggests that the only reliable way to know whether an activity is useful or not is to start it up and run it for a while. Experimenting with teaching activities may produce surprising results. You won't know until you try. 

The text has been arranged as simply as possible as a narrative. A deliberate choice was made not to use the sort of course book formula favoured by curriculum designers: statement of objective(s), preparation, procedure, discussion, and variations or follow-on activities. Experience with the first edition of these materials has shown that the outlines provided below are suggestive enough and sufficient for teacher purposes. 

With limitless resources, units of human rights work could have been written for every subject area, at every grade level, specific to all local curriculum needs. Short of this however, there will always be a place for manuals like the current one that try and show what can be done in a more general fashion. Manuals have a short shelf-life anyway. What is important is the process of curriculum development. Carried on by students and teachers together, this can keep curricula relevant, while giving all concerned direct experience in human rights practice. 

There has been much research into how children develop their judgments as they grow, and due note has been taken of it. Not every class member may be able to reach the level of awareness human rights feeling and thinking requires straight away. Pushing students too hard., particularly at the beginning, may also pre-empt honest expression of what they think or feel, and stop further progress. This may mean seeming acceptance by the teacher of some highly bigoted or offensive views. If this strategy is part of a process of encouraging students to feel comfortable about saying what is really on their minds, however, it will only be temporary. 

This manual assumes that all human beings benefit from the chance to explore rights-issues, and that by the age of 10 years or so students, given such a chance, have a capacity for lively and profound reflection far beyond that usually expected and supposed. The need for extra materials has been kept as simple as possible, and it is trite but true to say that the richest resources a teacher has to work with are his or her students and their experiences in everyday life. Exploiting these resources successfully shifts the focus from teacher-directed to student-initiated enquiry, and has invariably proved an education in itself. 

One last word: this manual is an ideas book. It is a beginning, not an end. It is offered as a resource to those working in all disciplines. It can be, and it has been, taught as a course, since there is a conceptual sequence built into it; however most teachers will mine it for what seems applicable to their current needs. Hopefully, in doing so, they will begin to see how useful human rights teaching can be as a framework for values education. What else is comparably comprehensive, specific, affirmative and globally agreed? 
 
 

| Contents |
Chapter 1... | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |  Appendix 1 |
| Appendix 2 part 1 | Appendix 2 part 2 | Appendix 2 part 3 |