Chapter 3 – Getting to know human rights

Introduction

The illustration shows a series of objects that are familiär to children and young people. Each may be read as a symbol of a human right or child’s right – a tent (leisure), an umbrella (protection), a plate with food (physical needs), a book (education, freedom of thought), a teddy bear (leisure and play), a flag (protection of citizen’s rights by the State), a first aid kit (medical care), an envelope (freedom of communication and expression), a house (privacy). The globe may stand for the idea of protecting human rights for every human being. The symbols are arranged, playfully, above each other, and we may imagine them spinning around. In this way, they are linked to form a whole that adds up to and means more than its parts. Take out one piece, and the whole structure will collapse.

This picture is an example that shows how powerful seemingly simple symbols can be. Finding symbols for human rights is an exercise that can be given to very young pupils, as well as older students too, naturally It allows them to link their personal experience to human rights and to explore the significance of human rights for their lives, and several of the exercises in this chapter follow this approach.

The exercises in this chapter address human rights – the core topic of human rights education. Other chapters, such as the one on values, emphasise teaching through human rights -with human rights as a pedagogical guideline. These exercises focus on teaching about human rights:

• knowing human rights: the students know one, or several of the human rights in detail and understand the basic principles;
• reading human rights – slowly and carefully, as every word matters;
• linking human rights to everyday life; the students view their personal experience and their wants and needs through a human rights perspective.

This is an approach that is suitable for students of any age.

Several exercises are examples of task-based learning. The students produce a poster or a treasure box and create symbols that stand for certain human rights. By appealing to the students’ creative skills, such exercises provide a change from the standard text-based approach.

All exercises require careful reflection in class. The students should understand that human rights may be violated, and therefore need to be protected by laws and means of enforcement (police, a system of punishment).

With older students it is possible to take some further steps. Human rights are fundamental rights, which means no authority needs to grant these rights or is in a position to take them away from us. The students need to know about the existence of the basic human rights treaties such as the European Convention on Human Rights. They need to understand that our rights have limits that are set by the rights of others. We need to find out for ourselves how to do this and, if necessary, legislators and judges will have to decide. As reports by the Council of Europe or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) show, the state itself can also be a threat to human rights. In such cases, citizens may appeal to their national constitutional courts or to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.