Author: Vladislav Morozov, Year 13
Human rights and how they can be part of your everyday life at school.
When did you last hear about human rights?? Did you actually know that you have them? This article is about reminding you how it is important to have them in today’s world and how it could be used in school life. We begin, therefore, with a short introduction to human rights.
Going back to the history of our world we can notice that people always wanted to acquire rights and responsibilities through their membership in the community- family, indigenous nation, religion, class, group, or state. Previously most societies had some kind of rules and traditions similar to the “golden rule” of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This is actually usually how we treat other people in our life, Don’t we? The all known five of the first written texts that discuss people’s obligations, rights, and responsibilities are the Hindu Vedas, the Analects of Confucius, the Bible, the Quran (Koran), and the Code of Hammurabi. All communities, written or oral, have, in reality, had justice and proprietary systems in addition to methods for taking care of their members’ health and welfare.
School Application?
We all know that schools are incredibly powerful in shaping our sense of social and civic responsibility. However, it is incredible but, a lot of teachers include elements of human rights education into their curricula without calling it such. Human rights are better understood and respected when educational frameworks take into account non-discrimination, gender equality, anti-racism, and other issues. That’s why you, students, should learn about their rights, history, and their responsibility as citizens of the
world.
As school members we should know our human rights and respect them. It is essential for you to know them, because who would defend you against some injustice, only yourself. So you, a student, must know basic human rights.I mean It’s better for you to know them rather than not, right? And the best way to do it is to celebrate diversity and different cultures and nationalities, as we have in our school. You might even have thought about such a way of learning human rights, but actually it is a really useful way of doing it. By celebrating different food, dress, holidays, and traditions, excursions to different places to learn about other cultures, and assemblies with students or parents speakers from diverse cultural backgrounds who can share their experiences.
So concluding our article it is important to say that learning human as a student is really important for each of us in today’s world. Nowadays lots of people around the world are facing injustice and cruelty. That’s why it is really important for you, students, to take action and respect each other’s human rights. However, some students aren’t capable of doing it by themselves, so it is essential for all schools around the world to take responsibility and add in school programs some basic lessons about human rights.
“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” – Malcolm Forbes