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HRE USA

A network dedicated to building a culture of human rights

Category: Education

Teaching About the Pandemic

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As remote instruction continues into the new school year, The Zinn Education Project shares resources for teaching in these challenging conditions including a new lesson for students, Who’s to Blame? A People’s Tribunal on the Coronavirus Pandemic as well as articles, films, and resources on teaching about the history of pandemics and the connection between climate change and the coronavirus.  

The summer issue of Rethinking Schools is a special, longer issue that focuses on teaching and learning in the pandemic. In their editorial, “The Fight of Our Lives,” Rethinking Schools editors describe the summer issue as “a lamentation, but it is also a celebration — and a call to action.”

This edition includes articles about what it means to show up for students at this time, the history of anti-Chinese racism and its intersection with disease in the United States, and how 12 teachers cope and think about what it means to be an educator right now.

>> Learn more

Indigenous Peoples’ Day Virtual Teach-In: Food and Water Justice

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EVENT DETAILS: 
When: Wednesday, September 12
Time: 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST
Where: Live Stream
Cost: $15

Description:
Join the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and Teaching for Change for keynote speaker, Winona LaDuke and curriculum workshops. The focus of the teach-in is Indigenous peoples’ histories and experiences around food and water justice today. The keynote speaker and interactive workshops will feature classroom resources from the NMAI’s Native Knowledge 360° and the Zinn Education Project’s Teach Climate Justice campaign. The teach-in will be held virtually via Zoom. CEU’s will be available by request and closed captions will be offered for the keynote and selected sessions. 

>> Learn more and Register

Refusing to ‘go back to normal’: Addressing structural racism in policing, healthcare, and other institutions

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EVENT DETAILS: 
When: Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Time: 1:00-2:15 pm CT / 2:00-3:15 pm ET
Where: Live Stream on Zoom
Cost: FREE

Description:
This session builds upon our previous event, “Addressing Racial Inequities in Health Outcomes During COVID and Beyond,” by delving further into the impacts of systemic racism, and suggesting alternative social and policy paths for improving lives and health by respecting the rights of Black people in the United States.

Distinguished presenters include Dr. Tendayi Achiume, U.N. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, Dr. Rachel Hardeman, from the University of Minnesota and  Dr. Sirry Alang from Lehigh University.  The panel will be moderated by Dr. Shailey Prasad, Director of the Center for Global Health and Social Responsibility.

>> Register

The Conscious Kid

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The Conscious Kid is an education, research, and policy organization dedicated to equity and promoting healthy racial identity development in youth. They support organizations, families, and educators in taking action to disrupt racism in young children. They equip parents and educators with tools they can use to support racial identity development, critical literacy, and equitable practices in their homes and classrooms. The Conscious Kid is an exceptional resource for teachers across the country who are aspiring to build more inclusive classrooms by including books that affirm diverse identities.  

The Conscious Kid was recently asked by Google to curate a list of teacher-facing reading materials as well as evaluation criteria to consider when bringing new resources into the classroom. Suggested by grade level, these resources are intended to help facilitate important conversations about racism, equity, and belonging. The Conscious Kid’s selections are informed by intersectional race-centered approaches including Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Media Literacy, which examine representation in the content, as well as the power dynamics behind the ownership, production, and creation of it.

>> Learn more
>> Bookshop
>> Resource: Books to Build Inclusive Classrooms

FREE Human Rights Yes! Training Manuals

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Human Rights Educators USA and Gleason Printing have teamed up to help offer two free human rights education training manuals:

Human Rights Yes!: Action and Advocacy on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is a comprehensive human rights curriculum on the rights of persons with disabilities developed by leading experts in the fields of disability rights, international human rights law, human rights education, and grassroots advocacy. Human Rights. Yes! is Topic Book 6 in the Human Rights Education Series published by the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center. It draws on the full body of international human rights law, with a focus on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The book utilizes an active learning approach and is intended to serve as a resource for disabled people’s organizations, human rights advocates, national human rights institutions, governmental human rights focal points, and international development and humanitarian assistance organizations.

 These manuals are FREE with the exception of paying the shipping & handling charge.

While shopping, please check out our UDHR posters and our  Human Rights booklets on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

Freedom Reads: Anti-Bias Book Talk Series

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Teaching for Change has just launched a new series entitled, Freedom Reads: Anti-Bias Book Talk. The series is a collection of short videos that give caregivers, parents, and educators the tools to evaluate children’s books using an anti-racist and anti-bias lens.

In Freedom Reads, associate director of Teaching for Change, Allyson Criner Brown, spends ten minutes examining a different children’s book, offering a synopsis, relevant resources, and four to five key points from an anti-bias, critical literacy perspective.

“In years of working with parents, caregivers, and educators, we’ve seen that taking a deep dive into children’s books is one of the best ways to teach adults how to apply an anti-bias, anti-racist lens to books and other children’s media,” says Criner Brown.

Designed with parents in mind, Freedom Reads intends to take viewers on an extended journey through some of the best anti-bias and anti-racist books out there. The series appears on Teaching for Change’s YouTube channel and Social Justice Books website. 

>> Learn more and watch episodes

Free Course on Use of Deadly Force by Police in the U.S.

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Police violence is a human rights crisis. We must step up to protect our communities across the U.S. against excessive use of force.  In order to promote action against police violence in the United States, Amnesty International USA has developed a FREE micro-learning course on the use of deadly force by police in the U.S.  By the end of this course participants will be able to:

  • Define the Use of Force and articulate under which circumstances authorities are allowed to use it
  • Understand how racist and discriminatory ideology has shaped the history of policing in the USA
  • Outline how U.S. police use excessive force and describe how it threatens human rights
  • Take action by organizing and mobilizing your community to support systemic reform of USA policing to end racism and stop human rights violations

>> Start course

International Journal of Humane Education

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The inaugural issue of the International Journal of Humane Education (IJHE) is now available from the Humane Education Coalition through their new parent organization, the Academy of Prosocial Learning!

As the first peer-reviewed journal of its kind, IJHE strives to build a scholarly community, expand a collective knowledge base, and validate the quality of research within all sectors of humane education. The first issue of IJHE includes scholar-practitioner articles and an invitational essay on various aspects of humane education in practice and theory.

>> Read the first issue

Tactical Mapping Tool Webinar

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EVENT DETAILS: 
When: Thursday, July 30
Time: 11:00 am – 2:00 pm  ET
Where: Live Stream on Zoom
Cost: FREE

Description:
New Tactics in Human Rights invites you to register for the Tactical Mapping Tool (TMT) webinar. This time the intro and intermediate webinars have been combined.

The TMT allows activists to work collaboratively on a secure platform to build their map and a database of key actors, assess where those actors sit on a spectrum from ally to opponent, and track and plan direct action. Centered around the idea of mapping the relationships that emanate from a human rights abuse, the Tactical Mapping Tool is intended to assist activists in better understanding and assessing power dynamics and the impact that targeted action would have on individuals and their relationships. The TMT uses New Tactics’ Five Steps to Strategic Effective Method, which helps activists to be more strategic and effective in their advocacy work, as a foundation of the web tool. 

This User Webinar will cover an introduction to New Tactics in Human Rights, our Strategic Effectiveness Method, and the Tactical Mapping Tool. The webinar will also delve into a discussion on the features of the Tactical Mapping Tool and provide guidance on how to use the TMT to get more from your planning and organizing. More details will be provided upon acceptance to the webinar. 

>> Learn more and apply

Human Rights Learning Lab for Young People

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EVENT DETAILS: 
When: Fridays, August 7, 14, 21, 2020 
Time: 12:00 pm PT, 2:00 pm CT, 3:00 pm ET
Length: 75-90 minutes per session
Where: Live Stream
Cost: FREE

Description:
As we shelter in place join Amnesty International for Friday’s in July-August as we explore human rights through interactive learning activities designed for grade levels 3rd-8th.   

Children have often been told that they are the future, that they will solve the world’s problems, innovate solutions, and be “the leaders of tomorrow.” But why does it have to be tomorrow?  

Now, more than ever is the time to speak to young people about universal human rights.  We know children are brave, powerful, and inquisitive.  The human rights learning lab will tailor age-appropriate learning through activities that will focus on: 

  • Introducing basic concepts focused on teaching “what are human rights?”
  • Observing human rights in your community and today’s world
  • Storytelling
  • What you can do!

Participants will receive a “Human Rights Hero Certificate of Recognition” from Amnesty International. For more information please contact jestrada@aiusa.org

>> Learn more and RSVP

We are grateful for the generous support of our members, individual donors, and The Puffin Foundation Ltd
The core values of HRE USA and its partner organizations include transparency and critical thinking skills. We believe that human rights--and human rights education--belong to everyone, and that the full realization of human rights means that access to human rights education materials must never be conditioned upon the subscription to any particular religious faith, ideology, political affiliation, or membership in any particular organization and that any organizational connections should be openly acknowledged.