This is the key collaboration space for Human Rights in Education. Here you will find colleagues’ ideas and experiences in implementing human rights-based education.

• * Why 'human rights in education'?
• Posted: 25-02-2009 12:12:50 UTC By Ced Simpson
• We're interested in why people are joining the Initiative. What drew you to it? What are your hopes for the Initiative?
  - Ced Simpson, Facilitation Team

• Re: * Why 'human rights in education'?
• Posted: 28-10-2009 10:12:15 UTC By Ced Simpson
• More and more our schools are snapshots of the society that is rapidly evolving in this country. There is great diversity of dress, language and histories but now these same children sit down to learn together. Inevitably they will meet differences that seem strange and implicit assumptions about people who are different will be tested. Everyone, but young people in particular need to learn respect for each other and understand that humans have rights that must be protected. There is a place for people to be themselves and there is a call for these same people to be part of an inclusive and respectful society. It’s at school that you begin to learn about these things so I support the initiative sponsored by Amnesty International, the Human Rights Commission and others, to help our schools and early childhood education centres develop as ‘human rights communities’.
  — Sir Paul Reeves
  

• Re: * Why 'human rights in education'?
• Posted: 28-10-2009 10:13:14 UTC By Ced Simpson
• During my term as Governor-General, I had a unique opportunity to observe New Zealanders at work and at play. I mixed with thousands of fine, hardworking kiwis in New Zealand and in about thirty countries overseas. I have been privileged to look back on this country and see us through the eyes of around 20 world leaders. We remain among the most highly respected nations in the world – respected for our willingness to work hard, and with all nations to improve the human rights and living standards of those less fortunate than ourselves. But we cannot be complacent; there is room for stronger human rights leadership globally and we know that we face human rights challenges at home –such as in the treatment of our children.
  As Eleanor Roosevelt said once:
  ‘Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.
  The idea of developing our schools and early childhood education centres as ‘human rights communities’ fits well with this philosophy. I commend the Initiative.
  — Dame Silvia Cartwright
  

• Re: * Why 'human rights in education'?
• Posted: 28-10-2009 10:14:22 UTC By Ced Simpson
• Human rights are an expression of human aspirations for dignity, equality, security and freedom to reach one’s potential as a human being. Yet despite our sense of fair play, and the significant role New Zealand has played in the development of the international human rights framework, research indicates that among the general population there is limited knowledge and understanding of human rights.
  Many concerns about the challenges facing our schools are human rights-related. And although much of the current New Zealand education policy is implicitly about the realisation of human rights through education, a better-informed and more explicit human rights approach promises to bring greater coherence to elements of the curriculum and school organisation.
  — Hon. Margaret Wilson
  

• Re: * Why 'human rights in education'?
• Posted: 02-11-2009 09:42:05 UTC By Ced Simpson
• For all of the reasons outlined above.
  For schools, HRiE is helpful in underpinning the many programmes in place for promoting well-being and equality in diversity. Almost two years into this initiative, rights, respect and responsibility are becoming entrenched into the culture of our whole school community. Far more than a great idea – it is a requirement. While New Zealand is seen as having been an exemplary international citizen since the establishment of the United Nations, we need to ensure that we are meeting our obligations at home.
  -- Libby Giles, Auckland Girls’ Grammar School
  

• Re: * Why 'human rights in education'?
• Posted: 02-11-2009 09:47:07 UTC By Ced Simpson
• Motueka High School has recently decided to take part in the Human Rights in Education Initiative. We have not done this lightly, and it is only after some consideration that we realise that there is a natural synergy between schools and human rights. Like any school, Motueka High School has a Behaviour Code and has expectations of how students and staff behave and interact with each other within the school environment. What the human rights approach allows is for those expectations and behaviours to have a solid framework based around human rights legislation. Human rights are all encompassing and have been developed and built on by eminent people over a period of 60 years. For us, human rights based education will be a whole-school approach to school organisation and to learning and we believe it will bring value through a more consultative cohesive community of staff and students.
  -- Rex Smith, Motueka High School (22 Dec 2008)
  

• Re: * Why 'human rights in education'?
• Posted: 19-04-2010 15:34:43 UTC By Ced Simpson
• I was a secondary school principal for 12 years until I became a Human Rights Commissioner in 2008. We (that is, the students, staff, parents and I) talked about our school as a community, as an extended whanau, because we knew that teaching and learning only flourishes if it is based upon the understanding that schooling is first and foremost about relationships between and among students and teachers and whanau, about shared commitments and values, about taking care that consistently what is best for the student is what gets done. If this is expressed in the language of human rights it is about building a consistent culture of rights, respect and responsibility.
  
  For 12 years on the pin board over my desk I had printed in large letters, Aristotle’s succinct observation that “there is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequals”. I thought about this most days.
  How to put the rhetoric into practice, how to sustain the practice? What IS best practice? Any school environment is intensely complex and diverse and filled with daily challenges as children and young people navigate the lessons of the classroom and the playground. Every school has its own culture, its own particular combination of challenges and priorities but we know that bullying, truancy and the long tail of underachievement in our schools are the most serious challenges to the right to education which New Zealand schools face today. There is strong international evidence to show that it makes sense to use a human rights framework to deal with human rights abuses.
  
  Tackling those abuses through a human rights framework, would start with an explicit understanding by all members of the school community of internationally and cross-culturally agreed entitlements to dignity, equality, security and the freedom to reach potential in the school setting. Agreement about how to go about this would be reflected in the school’s strategic vision, goals and operational policies as well as in the daily myriad of interactions inside and beyond the classroom door. This is what I understand education theorist, Tom Sergiovanni calls the heartbeat of a school.
  
  - Karen Johansen, former principal of Gisborne Girls’ High School
  

• Re: * Why 'human rights in education'?
• Posted: 29-04-2010 10:43:53 UTC By Ced Simpson
• I would see the importance of education in Human Rights as being fundamental to the continuance of a free and democratic society particularly in the context of the absence of a written constitution. The emphasis on both rights and responsibilities strikes a balance which is too often missing and the earlier and more explicit that connection is made the more chance that we will end up with a society that values and protects those rights.
  - Anonymous donor