[hr-education-na] Re: Strategies for introducing HRE into primary and secondary school

Dear all,

Thank you all for your wonderful discussion and insights.  The challenges
that the topic and your comments pose are both inspiring and overwhelming.
The questions raised by Frans, Melania, Abraham and Shula I found
especially compelling.  Where to start?

As a human rights educator and activist for almost 30 years, I want to be
practical in thinking about how to move this HRE education agenda forward
-- what methods, strategies, benchmarks etc. need to be considered to make
it work. My focus on task probably comes from my US upbringing but my
experience in the politics and power of education and development around
the world makes me pause before I enter the practical part of this
discussion.  Similarly the growing unchecked strength of market forces
over states that cripple governments' ability to direct their own nations'
development chills me.  What does this configuration of power say to
people concerned about implementing HRE in primary and secondary schools?

I think a major implication is that we need to become increasingly aware
of the international forces affecting the parameters and budgets of
education and development at our country levels and join with others both
nationally and internationally to question these visions and propose
alternatives.  I fear we are at a critical point and largely unprepared.
To put it simply, the struggle over rights is playing out everywhere
whether in Italy or Zimbabwe, the US or Chile in ways that are often
invisible. I think the challenge for everyone is where to focus priorities
-- how to strike a balance?  How do we combine these extraordinary
Internet discussions that enrich our thinking and practice with the need
to defend the right to development and education and the ideal of
democratic governance in the face of such powerful anti-democratic forces?
How do we be strategic?  Do we engage at the UN level on the details of
programs that probably are doomed to a slow death or still birth because
of larger global forces?  Do we work to strengthen popular movements and
join forces with them trying to challenge the policies and ideologies of
neo-liberalism and privatization?  What do we do, knowing that essential
services are under attack? Who are the important players and allies that
we can tap into or support?

Grappling with the pedagogical questions of this work raises other
questions for me.  For example, what are the entry points for HRE in
schools?  As many have said -- starting with abstract information on
conventions or constitutions is usually deadly and does not engage people
or relate to their lives.  Nor does it clarify and highlight the dynamic
and inspiring struggles of peoples around the planet upon which the human
rights system is based.

Building on my experience with women's rights, we found that people first
needed to engage around problems and issues that touch their lives deeply.
Afterward, the concepts and practice of rights were brought in as ways of
both affirming dignity and solving problems.  This was learned through
trial and error and struggle.  Often women lawyers would come into groups
with talks about rights in a vacuum, expecting to motivate them.  Given
their elite backgrounds, many, while well-intentioned, conveyed attitudes
of superiority that were condescending and disempowering.  Education was a
failure!  For me these lessons are very applicable to formal school
settings in terms of curriculum, method, attitude and underlying power
dynamics.

I agree completely with the idea of building a culture and practice of
rights in schools but recognize the incredible threat that it is to most
teachers. Paulo Freire, Maxine Greene and others have talked about this in
different ways.  How to help teachers embrace an approach that builds
student leadership, voice, respect and decision-making while drawing on
teacher knowledge, wisdom and vision?  How to address the inevitable
conflicts over power?  How to change the common view of teacher role as
dispenser of knowledge to one of facilitator and questioner who engages
with students and challenges them to think more deeply and critically and
act in solidarity with others on the basis of equity and respect?
Obviously, this is enormously challenging.  As some of you have inferred,
for me the idea of starting small with a set of 'champions,' people
committed to a holistic vision of human rights education, is key -- pilot
efforts to build support.  Similarly I think curriculum needs to be
problem-centered and action-oriented, based on real life concerns, weaving
rights into the analysis and planning for action. This has enormous
implications for curriculum development and the need for flexibility and
creativity.

A final question, how often do people with popular education and
grassroots organizing and advocacy experiences come together with human
rights activists and educators?  If not often, it could be a wonderful
dialogue.

I wish everyone well.  Being able to follow your conversations was a
privilege and always thought-provoking. Thank you. I close with an old
Irish blessing that has always inspired me.

        Life is short
        We do not have much time
        to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us.
        So be swift to love
        and make haste to be kind.

Ever onward,

Valerie Miller
Just Associates
Washington D.C. and
Thetford Center, Vermont
USA




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