Topic: Human rights Lesson: Human rights what are they? Resources: 1. Resource 1 Human rights list 2. Resource 2 Do human rights compete and conflict? 3. Resource 3 Human rights answers 4. Resource 4 Find someone who KS or Year Group: Year 10 Objectives: Students can find out what the 30 human rights are. Students can discuss ways in which human rights have to be balanced as they can clash. National Curriculum Key Concepts: 1.1c, 1.2c, 1.3c Key Processes: 2.1a Range and Content: 3a Curriculum Opportunities: 4a, 4b, 4c, 4g, 4h Lesson overview Students explore a simplified version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They discuss its relevance in the modern world to concepts such as freedom and diversity. They then explore the idea that human rights can lead to conflicting and competing opinions. They also interview each other about their own thoughts on/experiences of human rights issues. Starter Share the lesson objectives with students. Explain to students that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Check that students understand what universal (existing everywhere/involving everyone) and declaration (an announcement that is often written and official) mean. Ask students to get into pairs and give each pair a copy of Resource 1 Human rights list. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12867 Page 1 of 9
Give pairs a few minutes to read through the list of human rights and to discuss them. Prompt students with the following questions: Which of the rights surprised you? Explain why. Do you feel that human rights are relevant to citizens of your age? Justify your answer. Is an official list of human rights useful to politicians? Explain why. Which of these rights could you have come up with before you saw this list? Ask pupils to bring their chairs into a circle and remind them of circletime rules (e.g. one person is allowed to talk at a time, everyone faces the person who is talking, students respect each other s opinions, etc). Invite students to comment upon the following questions: What kind of issues does the list of human rights cover? Are these issues equally important to all people, whatever their backgrounds? Which of the human rights seem to be linked to diversity? Explain why. Which of the human rights seem to be linked to freedom? Explain why. In what ways might people in the UK not have equal access to human rights? In what ways might people in Europe not have equal access to human rights? In what ways might the world s citizens not have equal access to human rights? Examples of good answers: The declaration tries to make sure that everyone can get married, have children, get their children educated, live safely and believe what they want to believe. I think that the same basic issues are equally important to people all over the world. People in different countries disagree about a lot of things, but I reckon that we would all agree that the 30 human rights are relevant to us. Freedom is linked to quite a few of the rights. For instance, people are not allowed to be treated as slaves or thrown into prison for no good reason. Also, the declaration talks about the freedom to move between countries and about freedom of speech. Unfortunately I don t think that all European citizens do have equal access to human rights. For example, I saw something on the news about a group of Italian teenagers who d been forced into arranged marriages. Not everyone in Britain gets to choose when they get married or who they marry either. I know that I will get total freedom to marry who I like, so I m lucky compared to some other European citizens my age. Praise those that gave feedback. Main activity Activity 1: Ask students to remain in a circle. Explain to students that people s human rights can compete and conflict, and that it is sometimes hard to balance people s human rights. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12867 Page 2 of 9
Ask students to read through Resource 2 Do human rights compete and conflict?. Ask students to work out which human right is being referred to in each case. The answers are provided on Resource 3 Human rights answers. Ask students to each pick one comment with which they agree and one with which they disagree. Ask a few volunteers to justify which comments they chose. Examples of good feedback: I totally agreed with the one about stopping unemployed people from having children, but I didn t agree with the one about religion being banned. If we made sure that you could only have children if you had a job I reckon that the world would be a much happier place for children. In terms of religion, we shouldn t ever ban people s right to be religious because it s untrue that religion causes war. People who are truly religious are peace-loving; if anything, religion makes the world a more peaceful place. War is caused by politicians, not by religious people. The one that I disagree with is the first one because I think that the way in which the modern world defines illness is very ambiguous. I believe that you can stop yourself from drinking but that you can t necessarily stop yourself from developing something like cancer. Anyone who says that it s their human right to get free treatment for alcoholism by calling it an illness is unfair. It s like expecting to get your stomach stapled for free because you ve eaten excessive amounts of junk food for 40 years. I agree with the idea that none of us should be allowed to buy houses because this would get rid of landlords. My aunty reckons that landlords are greedy and that they cause house prices to shoot up. If we all rented houses from the government then we d all know that we were paying fair rent. Plus, I suppose the economy might get more stable because the banks wouldn t be lending out as much money. Activity 2: Ask students to choose one of the comments and use it to explain why it is difficult to balance human rights/why human rights can cause conflict. Examples of good answers: The one about the death penalty shows that it is not easy to balance people s human rights. The person who s commenting supports the death penalty. This might be because (s)he doesn t want taxes to go towards the cost of imprisoning murderers or because (s)he knows someone who was killed. The death penalty is a really complicated concept. It goes against human rights because one of our rights is the right to life. Mind you, if murderers take away other people s right to life, maybe this means that we should stop their entitlement to be alive. The sixth one, which is about asylum seekers, shows how human rights can cause conflicting opinions. The person sort of suggests that you have to be cruel to be kind by saying that we should stop people from settling abroad even when there are human rights abuses in their countries. The idea behind this is to force every www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12867 Page 3 of 9
country to take responsibility for treating citizens well in the first place, instead of letting people leave the country when human rights aren t being respected. I found the one about the school-phobic child really interesting. Part of me feels that the child should be forced to go to school, as so many children in the world would do anything to get a decent education. At the same time, I think that maybe he should be allowed to work on the farm instead. Maybe you shouldn t be forced to get educated just because it s one of your human rights. It s not as if we force people to get married, to travel or to be religious just because they re human rights! Plenary Ask students to get something to lean on and a pen, and give them Resource 4 Find someone who. Tell students that they are going to find out about each other s thoughts and experiences in terms of human rights. Ask students to go around the room interviewing other students (using the questions on the sheet). Explain that they should fill in other students names in as many boxes as possible, using one person s name for a maximum of two boxes. Encourage students to feed back with interesting comments. Examples of good feedback: Irina answered the one about a news story involving freedom of speech. She gave the example of a British MP who said that she was opposed to the ban on smoking in public places. In Britain you are allowed to say that you disagree with some laws, even if you are an MP! Charles is involved in Amnesty International and so he knows quite a lot about human rights abuses. He told me that people get tortured in his country by corrupt police officers so that they will admit to crimes that they didn t commit. In terms of people not being allowed to choose their government by democratic means, Nashwa used the example of women s suffrage. She pointed out that women did not get full voting rights in Kuwait until a few years ago. Meka s example of people s privacy being violated was quite an obvious one, but one that I hadn t thought of. He said that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have endless negative things said about their relationship and about their choice of family type. In a way, losing your privacy is a price that you know you re going to pay by getting famous. Mind you, just because it happens doesn t mean that it s right. Aim high Challenge students to think of additional human rights that might, in their opinion, be added to the list. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12867 Page 4 of 9
Assessment For homework, ask students to go on the Amnesty International website and to find a human rights campaign that interests them. Level 5: Students can discuss ways in which human rights cause conflicting opinions. Students can consider how fairness is linked to human rights. Level 6: Students can describe ways in which human rights connect international citizens. Students can consider local and global scenarios in which there are inequalities in terms of access to human rights. Level 7: Students can question other students assumptions about human rights issues. Students can argue persuasively about the worth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Level 8: Students can show a detailed understanding of how democracy is relevant to human rights. Students can show a detailed understanding of how justice is relevant to human rights. Check the web http://www.hrea.org/feature-events/simplified-udhr.html Simplified version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://youthforhumanrights.org Youth For Human Rights International (organisation that encourages young people to get involved in human rights issues) www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/humanrights Historical journey into human rights in the UK Summary of key learning Students can find out what the 30 human rights are. Students can discuss ways in which human rights can clash. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12867 Page 5 of 9
Resource 1 Human rights list What do all of us in the world have a right to? 1. Everyone is free and we should all get the same treatment. 2. Everyone is equal despite our differences (e.g. language or gender). 3. Everyone has the right to be alive and to be safe. 4. No one should be treated as a slave. 5. No one should be hurt or tortured. 6. Everyone has the right to be treated equally before the law. 7. The law should be applied to everyone in the same way. 8. You can ask for legal help if your rights are not respected. 9. No one can be unfairly imprisoned/sent out of their country. 10. Everyone has the right to a fair, public trial. 11. You should be considered innocent until proven guilty. 12. No one can invade your privacy without good reason. 13. You can travel wherever you want to. 14. Anyone in danger can seek asylum in another country. 15. You can belong to a country. 16. Anyone can marry and have a family. 17. Everyone can own possessions and own property. 18. Everyone can observe a religion and change their religion. 19. You can speak your mind and give/receive information. 20. Anyone can attend meetings and take part in group events. 21. Everyone can choose their government/take part in it. 22. You can access social security and improve your skills. 23. Everyone can earn a fair wage and join a trade union. 24. You can have leisure time and rest. 25. Anyone can get medical help if they are ill. 26. Everyone can go to school. 27. You can take part in the cultural life of your community. 28. Everyone must respect the rules that support human rights. 29. Everyone must respect others rights, and public property. 30. No one can take away anyone else s human rights. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12867 Page 6 of 9
Resource 2 Do human rights compete and conflict? 1. My ex-wife was an alcoholic who spent tens of thousands of pounds on gin during our marriage. She was in hospital several times last year because of liver damage. We feel that her alcoholism is an illness and that she therefore deserves free NHS treatment. 2. I don t want our eldest son to go to school now that he s in Year 9. He s developed school phobia which means he doesn t learn much at school; he might as well not go. He s much better off helping me run the family farm because he s going to own it soon anyway. 3. I approve of the fact that the death penalty exists in some American states. My aunt was murdered by someone who d already killed five other people. Because we live in Spain, the murderer will simply go to prison and my taxes will help to pay for his upkeep. 4. I feel uncomfortable when jobless people have children. I don t see how people can enter into the huge commitment of having a baby until they have a bit of money behind them. I think that unemployed people should be banned from starting families. 5. I feel that it s a terrible thing that there are landlords in this country who own nine or ten houses. We should stop people from being able to buy houses. The government should own all the houses and rent them out to us; this would sort out the economy, I reckon. 6. Allowing asylum seekers to settle in countries other than their own seems like a good idea, but it s not. What motivation do countries have to sort out their own problems if their citizens are allowed to move abroad whenever they experience difficulties? 7. I wish that we lived in a world in which religion was banned. We should make religion illegal. I accept that this would cause various problems for a few generations. However, within one hundred years I reckon we d have a warless society and would be much better off. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12867 Page 7 of 9
Resource 3 Human rights answers 1. 25. Anyone can get medical help if they are ill. 2. 26. Everyone can go to school. 3. 3. Everyone has the right to be alive and to be safe. 4. 16. Anyone can marry and have a family. 5. 17. Everyone can own possessions and own property. 6. 14. Anyone in danger can seek asylum in another country. 7. 18. Everyone can observe a religion and change their religion. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12867 Page 8 of 9
Resource 4 Find someone who example of how human rights have affected his/her life. his/her views about whether everyone should be allowed to get married. one benefit of asylum seekers being allowed to settle in Britain. can name three organisations that protect citizens safety in Britain. example of people being stopped from accessing medical help. can give his/her opinion on the death penalty. what a trade union is. example from history of people being used as slaves. how someone s privacy might be violated. can name a country in which many children do not go to school. can give his/her opinion on whether people should be allowed to change religion. can think of a news story that involves freedom of speech. one of the advantages to owning a house (as opposed to renting). example of people not being able to choose their government. can name at least five human rights without looking at the sheet. can tell you when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. can think of the kind of situation in which torture exists in the modern world. why there is a minimum wage in Britain. can name one benefit of allowing the world s citizens to visit other countries. can give his/her opinion on whether everyone is truly equal. can say whether it is realistic to expect all of the world s citizens to access the same rights. a way in which (s)he s been involved in a community cultural event. example of the sort of meeting that a local citizen might want to attend. can tell you whether advocating freedom of speech is a good idea. why everyone in the world is entitled to leisure time. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12867 Page 9 of 9