Rights and Responsibilities Agreements (Feb 2009)

Rights and Responsibilities Agreements (Feb 2009)

Work on these and other themes has begun in earnest in the Human Rights in Education lead schools. In most the process has begun with negotiation of Rights and Responsibilities Agreements.

"I have made a start in my classroom discussing rights and responsibilities and creating a charter, and I've been referring to R & R when dealing with behaviour management. The kids have talked about using the responsibilities as their personal goals for term 1 which was a great link for them to make. My class gave a presentation to a school assembly on rights and responsibilities, and other classes are going to do their own charters. My class are visiting a junior class next week to present a little role play to them about R & R. I think it's great and is starting to make a lot of sense!" - Hayley Ryan, Dawson Primary School (Otara).

"I have already been following the outline on how to make a Class Agreement, and with a few changes I have had fabulous responses from the children. I am amazed how many rights they believe they have; it has been great to come up collectively with the related responsibilities. It might be too early to see any great impact but the words ‘Rights and Responsibilities' flow freely in the classroom. The understanding they have of their responsibilities gives the children a lot more ownership over their behaviour. They are aware of the need to ‘respect' everyone's ‘rights' and this is easily reinforced now with the correct language. I am excited to see how this year progresses through the human rights lens." - Helen Zachariassen, Nelson Central Primary School.

Many New Zealand teachers start the year with classroom contracts, but the difference here is the explicit linkage to the internationally-agreed rights young people have. Making this linkage helps students understand how human rights were negotiated and agreed (a Social Studies achievement objective), adds weight to the agreed rights and responsibilities, and provides a constant opportunity for human rights learning as Agreements are used to guide behaviour.

See Rights & Responsibilities Agreements: Joining the Dots Developing a Class Agreement

But R&R Agreements are only part of the story

Negotiated Rights and Responsibilities Agreements are but one - albeit significant - tool in a human rights-based education approach. The improvements in student participation, engagement and achievement, as well as teacher satisfaction, come from applying the "human rights and responsibilities lens across the life of the school. Behavioural and cultural changes ( for students and teachers!) associated with human rights-based education occur because of the internalisation that results from continually using a "rights and responsibilities" approach informed by the international human rights framework.

Critical to this process is seeing and exploring the human rights and responsibilities dimension across all learning areas.

See how one dean is exploring human rights with year 10 students at Queen Margaret College (Wellington).