[hr-education-na] Re: Successful strategies for introducing HRE

Hello, friends.  The dialogue in anticipation of the HRE Summit has been
very valuable and I'm looking forward to meeting many of you next week in
NYC.

Regarding curricular and school integration of HRE, I can speak about one
school's experience.  I will elaborate more on this next week on Aug. 1
during my presentation at the afternoon panel.  For now, I can tell you
that we've integrated a full unit on international human rights in our
World History/Cultures course at Hunterdon Central for the past 13
years.  Using Willard Kniep's framework for global education curriculum
development, we wrote our new course for the NJ World History/Cultures
requirement in the summer of 1989, and have revised it periodically since
then.  The units we developed were:  Tradition and Change in the Modern
World (a cultural anthropological approach to study of two societies, each
from a different world region), Global Security (conflict resolution and
international security issues), International Human Rights, and the Global
Environmental Challenge.  When we moved to block scheduling, we truncated
the course a bit and integrated the environmental content, albeit reduced,
into other areas of the remaining course, but the other three thematic
units have remained.

For International Human Rights, we teach the equivalent of 44 days using a
45 minute standard period, or 22 block schedule periods (84 minutes per
day).  Students address rights in conflict, the international human rights
system (UDHR, role of the UN, regional human rights treaties and accords,
UNCRC, others), specific issues about human rights violations (i. e.,
torture, violations against women and children, state-sponsored violence),
and efforts by NGOs and others to enforce and strengthen international
human rights guarantees.  We also study the history of the concepts of
human rights, beginning with natural law and moving to the expansion of
human rights into economic, social, cultural and other dimensions of human
experience.

Why have we been successful?  We have a strong rationale that ties the
curriculum to state and national standards (and before that, to state
curriculum frameworks) and which is grounded in a sound philosophy about
global citizenship.  Second, the faculty are committed to teaching about
these issues in a reflective manner.  Third, the students are interested in
these issues, and  based upon the limited research we've done with student
responses and faculty reflections, their awareness grows about these issues
based upon study of human rights.  Fourth and last, we've actively sought
to revise and improve the course through structured reflection and
curriculum development.  That includes purchases by our library to
strengthen the human rights resources at our school, and regular
collaboration among faculty to share and discuss strategies and resources.

In the past thirteen years, we've had few parental or other challenges to
the curriculum, and I believe that is because we have taught the issues
from a perspective that encourages divergent thought and doesn't come up
with "one best answer" to the complex issues dealing with human rights
education.

We've also integrated human rights issues throughout our US History program
and in other electives, but that's a story for another time.  If anyone
would like a copy of our course of study, we would be pleased to send it to
you.  It certainly is a continuing work in progress, but if it can be of
help to you, request it from me off the list at wferneke@hcrhs.k12.nj.us.

Sincerely,

Bill Fernekes
Supervisor of Social Studies
Hunterdon Central Regional HS
Flemington NJ



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