SIMA Academy is an award-winning collection of expert vetted short documentaries that inspire a more just, inclusive and sustainable world. Sourced from 140 countries by the annual international Social Impact Media Awards, the streaming platform is the“Netflix for Changemakers”, empowering educators and students in over 100 countries to advance Global Citizenship, Media Literacy, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Experience unprecedented insight into today’s global challenges and the social innovations addressing them through the personal stories of those on the frontlines.
Access to public education is a right afforded to all children, regardless of a child’s or guardian’s citizenship, immigration status, or English language proficiency. These rights were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe.
This new guide from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Protecting Immigrant Students’ Rights to a Public Education: A Guide for Advocates, offers information and recommendations that educators, caregivers, and other trusted adults can use to ensure that their school or district is meeting its legal responsibility to ELLs and immigrant students and families.
Designed to share with families and available in multiple languages, an accompanying pamphlet offers overviews of this information, easy-to-use reference lists, and links to further resources. You can check out all of the new resources for educators and caregivers here.
Roots & Shoots was founded by Jane Goodall, DBE in 1991, with the goal of bringing together youth from preschool to university age to work on environmental, conservation, and humanitarian issues. Educators can join their Roots & Shoots global community, and get access to a variety of resources to nurture the next generation of compassionate change-makers and leaders with 21st-century learning skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, empathy, and collaboration. The Roots & Shoots model and curriculum guides students through the 4-Step Formula to identify projects, grow compassionate traits, and teach skills to cultivate a generation of change-makers. The program also offers From mini-grants and online courses for teachers.
The Knotted Line is an interactive, tactile laboratory for exploring the historical relationship between freedom and confinement in the geographic area of the United States. With miniature paintings of over 50 historical moments from 1495-2025, The Knotted Line asks: how is freedom measured? Just as importantly, The Knotted Line imagines a new world through the work of grassroots movements for self-determination. This project has three major components:
Website – a collection of media and resources. Their online Timeline also has pages with more information on every historical moment in The Knotted Line.
EVENT DETAILS: When: July 13-15 Time: 11:30 – 4:30 ET Where: Live Stream Cost: $50
Description: This summit organized by Facing History and Ourselves aims to support educators and school leaders both individually and collectively as they move to culturally inclusive and equitable practices where all students can find their voice, become critical thinkers, and are fully engaged in their education.
Across the country, educators and administrators are acknowledging that schools themselves—both the practice of schooling and the outcomes students are achieving—are not equitable across lines of race and class. Facing History and Ourselves has designed a professional development model to help educators address these troubling and historically rooted disparities.
Through interactive and critically conscious pedagogy, educators will examine the history of American education, current systems of inequity, and gain the tools necessary to address these barriers to equity. This summit will feature a live keynote presentation by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, author of Cultivating Genius, focusing on culturally and historically responsive literacy.
Participants will receive 15 professional development hours.
EVENT DETAILS: When: Tuesdays, July 20, July 27, and August 3, 2021 Time: 12pm – 2pm Where: Online Cost: FREE
Description: The free weekly workshops, led by Cymone Fuller and Sia Henry of the Restorative Justice Project at Impact Justice, will explore how educators can bring restorative justice practices and human rights principles into the classroom—modeling alternatives to punishment, including mediation and agreement, that allow students to develop deeper empathy, patience, active listening skills, ownership over their learning environment, and responsible decision making to support their social-emotional wellbeing for years and decades to come.
The three-part training series will feature local community leaders and human rights defenders who have put these principles into practice in their work to combat racial and ethnic disparities inside the classroom and in their communities. Educators will learn how restorative justice practices can be applied to end the school-to-prison pipeline and improve community well-being.
You can choose to attend one or more of the upcoming sessions:
July 20, 2021: 1st session – Restorative Justice Frameworks and Paradigms July 27, 2021: 2nd session – Building a Restorative Space in Your Community and School August 3, 2021: 3rd Session – Stories of Human Rights Defenders Impacted by Restorative Justice
For more information on the restorative justice training series, visit RFKHumanRights.org or email osterndorf@rfkhumanrights.org.
This new open access book from IEA (the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement), entitled, Influences of the IEA Civic and Citizenship Education Studies: Practice, Policy, and Research Across Countries and Regions, identifies the multiple ways that IEA’s studies of civic and citizenship education have contributed to national and international educational discourse, research, policymaking, and practice. The IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), first conducted in 2009, was followed by a second cycle in 2016. The project was linked to the earlier IEA Civic Education Study (CIVED 1999, 2000). IEA’s ICCS remains the only large-scale international study dedicated to formal and informal civic and citizenship education in school. It continues to make substantial contributions to understanding the nature of the acquired civic knowledge, attitudes, and participatory skills. It also discusses in-depth how a wide range of countries prepare their young people for citizenship in changing political, social, and economic circumstances. The next cycle of ICCS is planned for 2022.
In this book, more than 20 national representatives and international scholars from Europe, Latin America, Asia, and North America assess how the processes and findings of the 2009 and 2016 cycles of ICCS and CIVED 1999/2000 have been used to improve nations’ understanding of their students’ civic knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, current civic-related behaviors, and intentions for future participation in a comparative context. There are also chapters summarizing the secondary analysis of those studies’ results indicating their usefulness for educational improvement and reflecting on policy issues.
The analyses and reflections in this book provide timely insight into international educational discourse, policy, practice, and research in an area of education that is becoming increasingly important for many societies.
LEARN | RIGHT has developed a manual with tools, planning sheets, and activities for teachers to plan learning programs on children’s rights and create a learning environment that respects and promotes children’s rights in class and society.
The manual is generic allowing it to be applied to different national and cultural contexts, languages, and school systems as well as age groups.
We developed the manual to give a broad audience access to the approach and resources developed in the authors’ two previous manuals on teaching children’s rights in Greenland and Belarus, respectively, and in The Human Rights Education Toolbox.
As part of HRW Student Task Force’s (STF) advocacy to transition high schools across Southern California to 100% renewable energy, commit to energy efficiency plans, and engage in climate justice education, the STF hosted over 150 students, teachers, administrators, and community members at the “Human Rights and the Climate Crisis” Virtual Town Hall on Earth Day 2021.
“The climate crisis is the defining issue of our generation and we are at a monumental moment,” said one STF representative. “We are protecting our human rights to life, liberty, and personal security, to survival and development, and our right to health, to clean water – and a future! We are demanding public officials take action to protect our human rights and fight climate change.”
Students representing 18 high schools shared their personal climate stories, illustrating how climate change is impacting their lives. Several had experienced fire-threat evacuations and pollution-induced asthma, which further motivates them to take action. STF leaders also described using HRW’s methodology “Investigate, Expose, Change” to frame their advocacy as they engage school administrators and public officials.
Featured speaker, Christos Chrysiliou, LAUSD’s Director of Architectural and Engineering Services for the Facilities Division, discussed LAUSD’s steps to increase its energy and water efficiency, improve sustainability, and engage students in the decision-making process. “We cannot achieve all the things that we’re doing without your [students’] help… We need you in the process,” Mr. Chrysiliou said, “because that’s the only way to fight climate change.” Afterward, attendees participated in a spirited Q&A session with Mr. Chrysiliou. (Listen at 47:43 on the recording.)
Closing STF student speaker, Nathalia Wyss, quoted Greta Thunberg: “Act like your house is on fire, because it is – continue to take action against climate change and inform others, and please, keep fighting to turn our schools green.”
“Demystifying the Mind,” is a toolkit from Learning for Justice that addresses new ways schools are addressing trauma and promoting mental health. Even if your school isn’t yet teaching about mental health in the curriculum, you have the opportunity to foster nurturing relationships with your students. This toolkit offers ways to 1) help young people move toward healing after experiencing trauma and 2) build resilience in your students, your colleagues, and yourself.
HRE USA 