[hr-education-na] Rationale for incorporating HRE

Dear Colleagues,

In the coming weeks this List will be a platform for discussion around the 
upcoming Amnesty International USA National Human Rights Education Summit 
(New York City, July 31-August 1, 2003). The goals of the Summit are 
twofold: to shed light on human rights issues relevant to educators in the 
US, and to bring to the fore effective human rights related strategies for 
dealing with those issues. In addition, the Summit will provide an 
opportunity to review the necessity and value of human rights education in 
our schools.

HREA and Amnesty International USA want to provide list members through 
this on-line "warm up" discussion the opportunity to exchange ideas and 
experiences about the key issues the conference will address. This week 
(July 7-13th) we would like to focus on the rationale for incorporating 
human rights education within the U.S. schooling system.

In order to begin with a common platform for this on-line discussion, we 
would like to introduce our working understanding of human rights education 
(HRE). HRE is one of the tools for putting the theory of human rights into 
practice. Human rights are inalienable but this does not mean that everyone 
understands (a) they have these rights or (b) the complex issues that are 
involved.

HRE can assist people to understand the theory of human rights and 
integrate it into their everyday lives, play a role in protecting their own 
rights and take action to defend the rights of others. If human rights 
concepts are not translated into practice for the people that want to 
become involved in developing and implementing programs, then it will be 
difficult for HRE to be seen as a practical tool to prevent violations or 
sustain an environment that practices human rights at all levels.

Questions for discussion:

- How do young people benefit from learning about human rights?

- What responsibility do U.S. schools have to help young people learn about 
their human rights?

- In what ways are schools ideal/less than ideal environments for learning 
about human rights?

- What would be the specific knowledge, skills and attitudes that we would 
want students to gain from a human rights education learning experience?


We look forward to reading your thoughts, ideas and experiences.

Best wishes,

The Moderators


  



======== North American Human Rights Education listserv ========
Send mail intended for the list to <hr-education-na@hrea.org>.
Archives of the list can be found at:
http://www.hrea.org/lists/hr-education-na/markup/maillist.php
If you have problems (un)subscribing, contact
<owner-hr-education-na@hrea.org>.
**You are welcome to reprint, copy, archive, quote or re-post this item,
but please retain the original and listserv source.