Category: Education

On the International Day of Education (Jan 24), Amnesty International launched Rights Arcade, a free human rights game app which aims to educate the next generation of human rights defenders. The game is available on Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Amnesty.RightsArcade ) and IOS store (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rights-arcade/id1593637186 ) .

The game’s stories, which are fictionalized experiences inspired by real world events, are driven by a player’s choices. The player gets to play the role and navigate the experiences of the three central characters, making decisions based on their own understanding of human rights and unpacking how human rights concepts apply in daily life. 

People around the world will be able to access a collection of three games currently available in four languages: English, Simplified Chinese, Thai and Korean. Rights Arcade will be regularly updated to accommodate learning in more languages, and with new game offerings.

The Human Rights Watch Student Task Force (STF) has curated resources to help students and teachers advance climate change education at their schools. The STF team is eager to introduce the Climate Education Toolkit page, providing students and teachers with educational activities and resources!

STF defines climate change education as the inclusion of climate crisis discussions, information, activities and/or teaching across all subject areas. The best way to fight the human rights impacts of the climate crisis is to make sure everyone is educated about them. If you are a student or teacher interested in getting more resources or creating a climate crisis unit for your class, contact Student Task Force Liaison, Jordan Todd (M.A. Education, Licensed California Single-Subject Social Science Teacher).

The World As It Could Be Human Rights Education Program collaborated with the HRE Community of National Council for the Social Studies to develop this teaching guide to navigate HRE, racial justice and civics for Human Rights Educators USA!

For more information about the guide and to download, visit this page.

Dispatches from Quarantine is a collaborative project with the Educators’ Institute for Human Rights: CREATING A MORE PEACEFUL FUTURE THROUGH EDUCATION

Teachers are invited to share their experiences of teaching in this complicated moment. Prompting questions include:

• What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a classroom teacher during this time?
• How has this experience affected your teaching and/or your view of education in America?
• Have you been supported in terms of mental and emotional health during this period? If so, how? If not, what would have helped?
• Has the political divisiveness of pro- and anti-mask or vaccine rhetoric affected you or your job?
• Are there lessons that teachers can take away from this historic period that serve teaching and learning in new and meaningful ways?
• What would you like to preserve and record about your experience for future generations?

If you’d like to know more and participate in this project, please visit this page.

Explore lessons and resources about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement: Beyond “I have a dream” here.

The map is already being used in classrooms globally. Join the conversation by using this link: https://bit.ly/unMASKedStories

Learn more about unMASKing: The Pandemic Curriculum Project

The Danish Institute for Human Rights developed this new guide that includes different phases of curriculum development and sample curricula on human rights for four subjects across pre- primary and lower primary, upper primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary level. The hope is to “bring conceptual clarity on human rights education and curriculum development and provide concrete suggestions on how to build human rights curricula fit for 21st century human rights challenges, while contributing to the realisation of the SDG goals and targets set by the international community.”

For more information and to download the guide, visit this page.

Tune in tonight to watch a two-hour PBS documentary special, Preserving Democracy: Pursuing a More Perfect Union. The film includes a student discussion on the role of civic education in engaging and fostering an informed citizenry.

Almost a century after its publication, the Library of America reissued a new edition of Black Reconstruction with reflections from historians Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Reconstruction’s critical place in battles over democracy in the United States.

For more information about the book and to order it online, visit this page. You can also watch an online discussion with Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates Jr., editors of the new Library of America volume W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Reconstruction, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University.

Zinn Education project’s  Teach Reconstruction campaign offers lessons, articles, films, books, and a student project for K–12.

Tier 1 Modules provide general grounding in human rights and human rights education applications, including understanding ways to engage within the various committees, action teams, and working groups of HRE USA. Register now for Tier 1 Module that will take place on Monday, October 4 – 7:00-8:30pm ET. Visit this page for more information and dates of the TAAS.