Starting Conversations: Children’s Literature as a Path to Human Rights

Submitted by: Ellen Agnello
Abstract: School-aged children are exposed to devastating issues of human rights now more than ever. With one press of a button or swipe of a finger across a screen, they can be instantly inundated with the images and sounds of victims both near and far. Even in their safe places, their schools; they are often asked to participate in or contribute to relief efforts for people whose conflicts they don’t understand. This decontextualized exposure creates fear, confusion, and even flippancy, as children are lead to believe that minimal efforts collecting cans of food or clothing can solve catastrophes (Lucas, 2009).
According to Flowers et al., (2000), children establish attitudes about equality and human dignity by the age of ten. Without authentic exposure to the real-life situations of people across the globe, their development of empathy is unlikely (Lucas, 2009). As Todres and Higinbotham (2016) contend, “if a primary goal of a democratic society is to have an engaged citizenry that is aware of its rights and respectful of the rights of others, then that society must educate its newest members about human rights” (p. 6). It is essential, therefore, that schools expose children to human rights issues in the early elementary grades. One way to accomplish this is through text. Reading about authentic agents of oppressed, violated and/or victimized groups can help students understand that all people deserve the right to voice and power but that often those rights are not accessible to many (Darragh, 2015).
According to Louise Rosenblatt’s (1938), Reader Response Theory, readers must combine their personal experience, background knowledge, and the content of the text in order to achieve comprehension. In line with this theory, we hypothesize that readers can build background knowledge through text and apply it to new personal experiences. Through conversations about children’s literature depicting human rights issues, students can construct new understandings about what it means to have access to human rights or not, and apply these understandings to inform their perceptions of and interactions with the world.

The purpose of this study threefold. First, we are in the process of creating a screening tool that teachers can use to determine the authenticity of children’s literature depicting human rights issues. Additionally, a survey was distributed to practitioners in February 2018 to find out if they currently address human rights issues in their elementary classrooms and what methods they employ to do so. Finally, we are creating a pedagogical tool that combines language arts learning standards and human rights education learning outcomes. This tool can help teachers determine how to implement the children’s books they select.

The following questions guided this study: (1) Are elementary educators teaching human rights issues? (2) Why or why not? (3) How can elementary educators determine the authenticity of a book depicting human rights issues? (4) What strategies can elementary educators employ to engage students in constructive discourse about human rights issues through children’s literature?
First, we administered our survey. K-12 teachers across the world were invited to complete an anonymous Qualtrics survey that included thirteen questions. The questions were created based on The Connecticut Human Rights Education Survey (Mitoma, 2016). Survey questions probed teachers’ background knowledge, asking them to report whether or not human rights was a specific area of study, in what context, and for how long. It asks teachers if their school and/or district promotes the teaching of human rights and to what extent a number of factors contribute to their willingness and ability to teach human rights issues. These factors include familiarity with human rights, access to high-quality materials, adherence to school, district, and/or state standards, and community areas of focus.
Then, we created the screening tool which focuses on both the literary merit of the text in question and its portrayal of human rights events and/or issues. We consulted Santora, Anti-defamation League & Tunnell, Jacobs, Young, & Bryan (2016) to create the items concerning the literary merit of the text. To create the items pertaining the portrayal of human rights events and/or issues, we consulted Guidelines on Human Rights Education for Secondary School Systems (OSCE/ODIHR, 2012).
Finally, we created a pedagogical tool by merging the English Language Arts standards from the Common Core State Standards with the learning outcomes from Guidelines on Human Rights Education for Secondary School Systems (OSCE/ODIHR, 2012) and the South African Qualifications Authority (Keet, Masuku, Meyers, Farisani, Carrim, & Govender, 2001).

This session will offer methods for educators to facilitate the development of global awareness, humanitarianism, and empathy in their students through exposure to children’s books depicting human rights issues. Educators often steer clear of these issues to avoid engaging in controversial discussions or exposing students to trauma. Students, however; are exposed to these issues on a daily basis. To avoid the misconceptions that might ensue from students’ informal exposure, it is imperative that teachers intervene and discuss these issues in explicit and constructive ways.

References
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Keet, A., Masuku, N., Meyers, A., Farisani, M., Carrim, N., & Govender, S. (2001). Guidelines
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