[hr-education] Teaching and neutrality

Adrian,

You make an interesting point which has got me thinking.

I think teachers should be neutral and students must decide for themselves
what rights and responsibilities they believe are right for them. Students
must also decide whether they support human rights or don't. No one should
be coerced. We want students to question what we teach including human
rights and democracy, don't we?

Students should learn what democracy is and that virtually all societies
have voiced support for the UDHR and signed other human rights treaties. A
teacher's "neutrality" doesn't mean that the teacher doesn't teach that
human rights and democracy are accepted norms. In my view, teachers cannot
in fact be neutral on human rights and that includes democracy which I
believe is a system of government which aims to fulfill Article 21 of the
UDHR. I think we want teachers in our schools that support human rights
and democracy, don't we? But should this be a quality that is required of
teachers before we let them teach? What if the courses they will teach
includes human rights?

Another challenging question is: is it wrong for a teacher to give a
student a failing grade because that student does not support democracy
and human rights? Are we teaching just knowledge or are there attitudes we
expect students to have at the end of their human rights education? In
various treaties, state parties agree to uphold human rights but must
citizens (students in my example) also agree to this?

Ed


Edward O'Brien
Executive Director
Street Law, Inc.
1010 Wayne Avenue, Suite 870
Silver Spring, MD. 20910
(301) 589-1130 ext 235
(301)589-1131 (fax)
www.streetlaw.org



On 10 Feb 2005, Adrian Witherow wrote:

>In response to Ed O'Brien's ideas on 'democracy education'.
>
>I believe that educators have the responsibility to remain neutral.  To
>suggest that educators should set out to 'teach democracy' is
>controversial.  Personally I am a strong advocate for democracy, but to
>engage in 'democracy education' is the antithesis of the true sense of
>democracy.
>
>I believe the approach that should be taken by educators is that of
>allowing students to develop independent thinking skills to be able to
>make informed decisions by themselves.  Democracy and human rights are
>about freedom of conscience rather than dogmatic authoritarianism.
>Students should have the right to make up their own minds about issues
>such as governance, rights and responsibilities.
>




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