[hr-education-na] Re: Your input requested for the "4th R"

Dear Colleagues,

In the "Human Development Report 2000," Amartya Sen made an assertion that
"human rights and human development are two sides of the same coin -
improving conditions of all people in all countries." From this
perspective, human rights education needs to be context specific. Without
challenging the reality of "the law of the force" [that is, American
Supremacy], the philosophical foundation of the "the force of law" [that
is, International Human Rights] seems to be idealistic thinking of the
powerless and the voiceless people. Our human rights education efforts of
the last decade is abstract and far from concrete. Our human rights
educators are primarily lawyers [and few history and civics teachers]
performing civic duties while fulfilling their professional obligations. A
vast majority of our people [young and old] do not participate and have no
access to human rights education. If we want to build open societies based
on democracy and human rights, we need to create conditions for human
rights education that has both legislative and resource redistribution
implications.

I would like to see a second decade of human rights education. And this
time, I want human rights education [the "4th R"] gets a fair trial as
"information literacy," "computer literacy," "media literacy," "civic
literacy," as well as the "basic 3-R (reading, writing and arithmetic)
literacy."

Part of challenge for the "4th R" education is to trade times between
work/school, leisure and civic spheres. An American solution of human
rights education will be "Integrated Development of Citizenship and Human
Rights Education" using a service-learning pedagogy. In other words, human
rights education may be viewed as a force for advancing civic mission of
public education.



On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, Felisa Tibbitts <ftibbitts@hrea.org> wrote:

>The U.N. Decade for Human Rights Education will conclude at the end of
>2004!  This benchmark is inspiring reflection among human rights educators
>about our progress over the last ten years - as well as questions about
>where we go from here.
>
>This will be one of the topics addressed in the spring 2004 issue of the
>"4th R", Amnesty International-USA's magazine for educators. In this
>issue, the editors would also like to include examples of how HRE is
>taking place in less traditional subjects, that is, not just in social
>studies classrooms but across subject areas and disciplines (science,
>language arts, math, visual arts, etc.)
>
>I would like to invite listserv members to share their experiences in
>teaching HRE in less traditional subjects. What curricular and
>extracurricular strategies have you used? What were your successes? What
>did students gain from these experiences? Would these strategies work in
>other school settings with different student populations? The more
>details, the better!  Please send in your messages as soon as possible, as
>we have a mid-January deadline for the article.
>
>You are also welcome to share your comments on the first Decade for HRE.
>To your mind, what have been the accomplishments and what are the
>remaining challenges for educators in the U.S.? What you think the future
>holds for us or, alternatively, how we should hold the future?
>
>Your experiences and thoughts will enrich many members of the human rights
>education community. We look forward to reading your comments!
>




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