How to be a good citizen
(The Guardian Sep 12,2006)
If I ever had any doubts about how demanding a teacher’s job is, it would have disappeared for good when I spent some time recently in schools。
It was refreshing, across the age groups of the children I met, to see how quickly they grasped the whole idea of human rights and how, with a little bit of prompting from their teachers and me, they saw how relevant they were to their daily lives.
I believe, that understanding its relevance is very important not just for children but for all of us. Rights are not, as is sometimes suggested today, an abstract concept or there just to safeguard those living under dictatorships. They help improve all our everyday lives and societies.
Human rights are not restricted to torture or tyranny. They can and are violated. Importantly, they also place obligations and responsibilities on us.
Controversial area
Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the architects of the UN charter of human rights, said，unless rights have meaning in our neighbourhoods, schools and workplaces, “they have little meaning anywhere”.
Now, I am pleased that human rights are now seen as an essential part of citizenship lessons in our schools. But I also saw for myself—thanks to the chance I was offered to take part in a programme for Teachers’ TV—the problems this subject poses for teachers.
Human rights is, after all, a difficult area and often controversial. There are very seldom hard and fast rules. Rights are rarely absolute and frequently clash. There is often a delicate balance to be struck between the public interest as a whole and the rights of an individual.
The teachers who took part in the programme also told me of their worries that they might be force-feeding their pupils information rather than stimulating the discussion necessary to ensure they grasped the importance to them of what they were being taught.
What was interesting was how quickly, by using relevant and local examples where possible, the pupils cottoned on to how the interplay of rights and responsibilities could affect their lives, and so became active and engaged participants in the classroom debates.
You don’t have to look beyond their own school experiences to understand this.
Cohesive society
All these topics sparked often passionate debate between the children, which, I hope, gave them a better understanding of where the balance of rights and responsibilities lies in our society.
But it is clear from what teachers have told me that they need more help, particularly through more quality resources to bring this subject alive for their pupils.
If they succeed, I believe every one of us will gain. Children who recognise the role that rights play in promoting the dignity of all, and understand that such rights also impose responsibilities, will have a much better chance of going on to be good citizens. So it is time to embrace this area.
