Check out these two new lessons created by the grand finalists of the Facing History and Ourselves 2017 Margot Stern Strom Innovation Grants. Today’s world calls for more empathy and these two winners have worked hard to develop approaches that help your students understand empathy and how to consider other points of view that may differ from their own. Explore them today and see how you can create a more compassionate world with your students.
Professor Rebecca M. Bratspies of CUNY Law School has published a timely new article in the current issue of the University of Miami Law Review, titled The Climate for Human Rights. Here’s the abstract:
Climate change is the defining challenge of the 21st century. The United States government is currently ignoring the problem, but wishful thinking alone will not keep global mean temperature rise below 2ºC. This Article proposes a way forward. It advises environmental decision-makers to use human rights norms to guide them as they make decisions under United States law. By reframing their discretion through a human rights lens, decision-makers can use their existing authority to respond to the super-wicked problem of climate change.
Plan International has developed a new Girl’s Rights Platform that consists of a vast searchable database of a variety of human rights documents and conventions by the UN and regional bodies. There’s also a UN debate tracker planned. That platform has been developed for human rights activists, NGO staff, and academics and is also a useful resource for educators who work with girls and on human rights. The platform includes an online learning experience with modules on different aspects of girls’ human rights. To find the modules, follow the link to the quiz section where you can test and increase your knowledge.
The It Gets Better Project is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization that uses digital media and more to help uplift, empower, and connect LGBTQ+ youth around the globe. They recently launched a new education initiative, one that centers on free-for-download EduGuides that accompany some of their best films, video series, books, and more. The resources are meant for the classroom, as well as any space where learning occurs and where empathy and inclusivity of LGBTQ+ youth are encouraged.
Everyone has the right to be safe and secure, and live without fear. But in the U.S., gun violence is an epidemic that directly threatens these human rights. Whether you’re walking down the street, in a school or at church no place is truly safe. In fact, 30,000 people are killed with guns each year in the U.S. and 80% of all gun deaths in the world take place in the U.S. (Amnesty International)
According to International Law, the U.S. government has clear and urgent obligations to protect the people living in this country from gun violence. But the U.S. has a patchwork of inconsistent and inadequate federal and state gun control laws and has failed to take all measures necessary to prevent gun violence as evidenced by the most recent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida where 17 students were killed.
The lack of legislative action to reduce this man-made epidemic continues to hold our country at gunpoint and prevent us from exercising our human rights. Of course, a key challenge is how to enforce these human rights obligations and that’s where activism , like the above youth-led initiatives, play a critical role. We the people must demand that our elected officials respect, protect and fulfill our human rights — including those of people most impacted by gun violence: youth, women and people of color.
On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives and communities across the nation will take to the streets to demand that their lives and safety become a priority and that we end gun violence and mass shootings in our schools today.
On April 20, a second nationwide school walkout has been planned, which marks 19 years since two teens killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado. Started by a Connecticut student who lives within 30 minutes of Sandy Hook Elementary School. Like the previous walkout, at 10 a.m. students will gather outside, where 17 minutes of silence will honor the victims in Florida.
Stoneman Douglas survivors have also spearheaded initiatives that do not require walking out of school, such as their Vote For Our Lives campaign and #NeverAgain: Pick Up a Pen, which asks students, teachers and concerned citizens to write to lawmakers.
Planning to be part of the national actions on gun violence? Check out these resources for teachers and students.
EVENT DETAILS:
When: Saturday, March 17th
Time: 9:30 – 4:30 pm
Where: Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th Street, Oakland, CA
Cost: Free. Registration Required.
A day-long Institute by the World As It Could Be Human Rights Education Program. Participants will learn about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and how to utilize the UDHR to take positive action to address issues of concern. Modeled after their successful 3-day Institutes, the program will combine fun and meaningful experiences with creative arts to encourage different ways to communicate and express ideas about human rights in our most immediate circles.
Human Rights and Children by Barbara Stark, Professor of Law at Hofstra University, provides a comprehensive overview of children’s human rights, collecting the works of leading authorities as well as new scholars grappling with emerging ideas of ‘children’ and ‘rights.’ Beginning with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world, this book explores the theory, doctrine, and implementation of the legal frameworks addressing child labor, child soldiers, and child trafficking, as well as children’s socio-economic rights, including their rights to education. With an original introduction by the Professor Stark and contributions by leading scholars such Jonathan Todres, Martha Davis, as well as many others, this topical volume is an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and activists. Contributors also include . You can check out the table of contents here.
HRE USA is happy to release the 6th edition of the Human Rights Here and Now Bulletin, “800,000 Good Reasons to Teach About DACA: A Toolkit for Educators.”
Since 2012, nearly 800,000 undocumented young people who came to the USA as children have been allowed to go to school, work, or serve in the military without fear of deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. On September 5, 2017, President Trump rescinded the program and gave Congress six months to determine the fate of DACA recipients. “The deportation clock is ticking on hundreds of thousands of young people who know no other country,” said Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois. Work permits begin to expire on March 5, 2018, and all protections under the program will be stripped away on a rolling basis over the next 2 1/2 years.
Who are these so-called “dreamers”? Why do some people feel they should be expelled from the United States? Why do others agree with Human Rights Watch that Trump’s repeal of DACA will expose hundreds of thousands of people to deportation by a cruel and unjust immigration system? This DACA toolkit offers educators resources for addressing this important and controversial human rights issue that faces schools and communities across the country.
EVENT DETAILS:
When: Saturday, February 24th
Time: 8:00 am – 4:30 pm
Where: Wydown Middle School, 6500 Wydown Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63105
Cost: $10-$35
The theme of this years conference is “Building Counter-Narratives for Radical Healing and Hope.” Due to escalating incidents of violence, discrimination, and misrepresentations of truth, many of our children are in need of radical healing and hope. This year’s Educating for Change Conference seeks to hone our great power as educators to build counter-narratives, which disrupt misrepresentations that give voice to alternative facts. This project is historically urgent. Join us in our efforts to use counter-narratives as a tool for fostering hope and healing so that we may resist traditional domination, empower marginalized communities, and move toward sustainable solutions to today’s crises. Keynote speaker, Gholnecsar “Gholdy” Muhammad will be speaking on the intersection of history and language arts with a particular focus on the representation of young black women.
A smart phone application to de-escalate tensions during traffic stops, a voting machine to give the disabled an accessible way to cast a ballot and a community-based research project to test the impact of mining on the Hopi Navajo Reservation’s groundwater provide snapshots of practicing science through the lens of human rights, presentations at an American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting showed.
In the field and in labs students applied scientific concepts and methods to problems they find relevant, using research data to develop and test responses to assist local policing, broaden voting participation and protect drinking water supplies.
The projects, undertaken by students of all levels, were among examples that stand at the intersection of an emerging approach to teaching that integrates the fundamental tenets of human rights into science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.
Linking human rights and science was explored from multiple perspectives during the Jan. 25-26 meeting of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition, a network of 26 science, engineering and health organizations.
“The international rights of freedom of speech, freedom of travel, freedom to associate and collaborate are freedoms to the essential ingredients in the practice of science,” said Rush Holt, CEO of AAAS, in opening remarks. “We should be looking at what human rights bring to science in those ways. Similarly, we will be looking today at what science brings to human rights.”
Two expert panels and breakout training sessions demonstrated how STEM education taught through the prism of human rights helps inspire students, puts the scientific method to work in the collection and eventual application of evidence and allows students to design and build projects that address civic issues. “Students love this stuff,” said Myles Boylan, program director at the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education.
Participants said reimagining STEM education has been shown to draw new students into the field, from elementary school through graduate school, keep them involved and build a more diverse student body and, eventually, a more diverse STEM community.
Such novel approaches are not without challenges, speakers said, including institutional barriers and academic resistance to altering the way courses are taught, particularly core courses. In some areas, faculty face concerns of politicization and encounter funding restrictions.
Jessica Wyndham, director of the AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law program and coordinator of the Science and Human Rights Coalition, which launched in 2009, said such approaches empower students, improve academic outcomes and encourage interdisciplinary partnerships.
Eliza Reilly, executive director of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement, a non-profit which seeks to strengthen student learning and interest in STEM by connecting course topics to issues of local, national and global importance, said rethinking STEM education is necessary to produce graduates equipped to tackle society’s environmental, economic and political challenges.
“Context-based learning, problem solving, community-based research, these are now things that are widely acknowledged through the research to be the most effective teaching practices,” Reilly said.
Efforts to rethink STEM education with a civic mindset date to the late 1990s, prompted by then-AAAS President Jane Lubchenco’s urgent call for scientists to enter into “a new social contract” to devote their talents to society’s most pressing problems and communicate what they know to others, Reilly said.
In 1998, Lubchenco’s appeal was quickly followed by the release of the Boyer Commission’s “Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities” report that delivered a stark assessment of the nation’s research institutions and more broadly higher education.
Both eventually led, Reilly said, to the establishment of the center’s Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities program, which provides teaching resources to encourage faculty to frame courses around civic challenges such as public health disparities, inequality and environmental issues.
“The strategy is to teach the basic STEM content, do it rigorously, but do it through the lens of the problem,” she said, adding that “changing the script” encouraged faculty to devise new methods that improved learning.
Boylan said adopting such an approach addresses the two central challenges at the focus of National Science Foundation funding: the need to improve the quality of STEM education and expand access to STEM across groups.
Glenn Mitoma, an assistant professor of human rights, curriculum and instruction at the University Connecticut, said the history of human rights – from the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly Article 26, to the 2011 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education – gives students insights into how to apply such principles to societal challenges.
“There is no doubt that science can bring a number of different dimensions to human rights programs,” Mitoma said.
Sara Tolbert, an associate professor of science education teaching at the University of Arizona, emphasized the importance of forging partnerships with local organizations. Tolbert cited, for instance, the groundwater field study on the Hopi Navajo Reservation as having improved student academic outcomes.
“We talked about how human rights dictate that everyone has a right to education and I think we could extend that to all students have the right to learn and not to just sit in classrooms where they find the information is completely irrelevant,” Tolbert said.
HRE USA 