What are human rights?
Duration
2 hours
Age Group
15 - 16
Objectives
Promotion of EU citizenship, EU and democratic values and human rights
Development of empathic behavior at school
Development of empathic behavior at school
Needed material
Human rights cards (available on site)
Human rights clients/human beings’ recording worksheet (available on site)
Human rights owners’ recording worksheet (available on site)
Sales posters (Paper, pencils, crayons, glue)
Human rights clients/human beings’ recording worksheet (available on site)
Human rights owners’ recording worksheet (available on site)
Sales posters (Paper, pencils, crayons, glue)
Emotional Intelligence Areas
Empathy
Social skills
Social skills
Description
What are human rights is an interactive engaging activity which raises students’ awareness about human rights (HRs) as belonging to everybody in the world and essential for each and every human being to live and grow. Students take on roles as ‘human beings’ having to choose and buy HRs and ‘HRs owners’ who choose and sell HRs. The activity helps students to understand that human rights belong to everybody and that every human right is important for human beings to have a decent life.
Role-playing is a very engaging and effective way to teach empathy as it creates a safe space where students can experience frustrations and emotions related to real life situations from other people’s perspectives. The technique enables students to get a deeper understanding and appreciation of the other's feelings and thoughts and encourages them to have initiatives to help others. Through roleplay activities, students can explore relationships between people, feelings, attitudes, values, and various problem solving strategies, develop their social skills by collaborating with their peers and see the relevance of the content they have to study. By encouraging students’ participation role-playing has numerous benefits in terms of students’ development (communication and social skills, creativity, empathy, awareness of themselves and others, self-confidence etc). Discussions accompanying role-playing encourage students to open up and share ideas and feelings.
What are human rights is already designed to stimulate empathy and emotional intelligence. The teaching source was specially created to be used by schools by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (Scotland &Wales), 2019.
It is possible to increase its impact through follow up activities (debates, discussions stimulated by photos, etc).
Role-playing is a very engaging and effective way to teach empathy as it creates a safe space where students can experience frustrations and emotions related to real life situations from other people’s perspectives. The technique enables students to get a deeper understanding and appreciation of the other's feelings and thoughts and encourages them to have initiatives to help others. Through roleplay activities, students can explore relationships between people, feelings, attitudes, values, and various problem solving strategies, develop their social skills by collaborating with their peers and see the relevance of the content they have to study. By encouraging students’ participation role-playing has numerous benefits in terms of students’ development (communication and social skills, creativity, empathy, awareness of themselves and others, self-confidence etc). Discussions accompanying role-playing encourage students to open up and share ideas and feelings.
What are human rights is already designed to stimulate empathy and emotional intelligence. The teaching source was specially created to be used by schools by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (Scotland &Wales), 2019.
It is possible to increase its impact through follow up activities (debates, discussions stimulated by photos, etc).
Lesson Plan
1. Set students in groups of 4. They have to imagine they have to explain to an alien what human beings need to grow and survive. Students present their group conclusions to their peers. Introduce human rights (HRs) by having a class discussion on the importance of HRs and that all human beings have the rights to have their basic needs fulfilled.
2. Role play: Introduce the situation: tell students they will participate in a market place where HRs are on sale. Divide students into 2 groups: human rights owners (selling HRs) and clients/human beings interested in buying human rights. Human beings get cards with the human rights, which they have to rank in order of their preference from the most to the least important. Their choices are individual. They can work in pairs and reflect on why the selected HRs are important to them and how they feel when having to choose a limited number of HRs. Tell them that not all HRs will be on sale. HRs owners also get HRs cards; they select four that they think are most important and create a poster with them and their starting prices which they display on their stall. Allow time for HRs owners to organise their stalls round the classroom.
3. Get human beings have a look at the stalls, see what human rights are on sale and reflect on why they should buy them. Get human beings decide on which HRs on sale they would like to buy as they think are vital for their life.
4. Start the trading. Give human beings a certain amount of money they can spend on HRs and ask both groups to record their purchases and sales once they close the deal with a shake hand. Offer prizes to the human beings who bought the most HRs and the owners who sold the most HRs at the highest prices.
5. Get students in a circle and give each participant a card with a HR. Take a card away from one of the students (one suggestion would be to select ‘owners’ so that they can also experience the feeling of loss and frustration) and ask them what would happen if we lost that particular right and how this would impact our lives. Allow them time to reflect on how the loss would make them feel and ask them to share their feeelings with their classmates. Go through all difficulties, frustrations, and feelings associated with each situation. Ask them how they would help their peer who has lost/ignored/ was not aware of that right
2. Role play: Introduce the situation: tell students they will participate in a market place where HRs are on sale. Divide students into 2 groups: human rights owners (selling HRs) and clients/human beings interested in buying human rights. Human beings get cards with the human rights, which they have to rank in order of their preference from the most to the least important. Their choices are individual. They can work in pairs and reflect on why the selected HRs are important to them and how they feel when having to choose a limited number of HRs. Tell them that not all HRs will be on sale. HRs owners also get HRs cards; they select four that they think are most important and create a poster with them and their starting prices which they display on their stall. Allow time for HRs owners to organise their stalls round the classroom.
3. Get human beings have a look at the stalls, see what human rights are on sale and reflect on why they should buy them. Get human beings decide on which HRs on sale they would like to buy as they think are vital for their life.
4. Start the trading. Give human beings a certain amount of money they can spend on HRs and ask both groups to record their purchases and sales once they close the deal with a shake hand. Offer prizes to the human beings who bought the most HRs and the owners who sold the most HRs at the highest prices.
5. Get students in a circle and give each participant a card with a HR. Take a card away from one of the students (one suggestion would be to select ‘owners’ so that they can also experience the feeling of loss and frustration) and ask them what would happen if we lost that particular right and how this would impact our lives. Allow them time to reflect on how the loss would make them feel and ask them to share their feeelings with their classmates. Go through all difficulties, frustrations, and feelings associated with each situation. Ask them how they would help their peer who has lost/ignored/ was not aware of that right
Assessment
1. Go through the main points and check what students learned from the
the activity.
What did you learn? Do you still have questions about? What was the most exciting thing you learnt from this activity?
2. Class discussion on students’ roles. Ask each group how they felt in that particular role and go through all difficulties, frustrations, and emotions related to each role (you can use the questions provided by the source and add other questions that you find suitable):
Owners:
– “Which human rights did you decide on to sell and why? Which was the most popular? How did you promote this human right?
– Which human right was the least popular? How did you promote it?
– Who made the highest number of sales? Which human rights did you sell?”
– What were the criteria? How did you feel when you had to choose the HRs? Did you take into account the others?
Human beings:
– “Did you find it easy / hard to choose which human rights to buy?
– Which human rights did you buy and why?
– How would these rights benefit your life?
– Which human rights did you not think were important? Why?
– What would be the impact of not having these rights?”
General class discussion on how they felt about this activity:
Were the situations difficult to deal with? Why? Which was more difficult to handle? Why?
How did they negotiate? Was it difficult? Why? Did students show respect for others’ ideas, even if they disagreed/ competed?
the activity.
What did you learn? Do you still have questions about? What was the most exciting thing you learnt from this activity?
2. Class discussion on students’ roles. Ask each group how they felt in that particular role and go through all difficulties, frustrations, and emotions related to each role (you can use the questions provided by the source and add other questions that you find suitable):
Owners:
– “Which human rights did you decide on to sell and why? Which was the most popular? How did you promote this human right?
– Which human right was the least popular? How did you promote it?
– Who made the highest number of sales? Which human rights did you sell?”
– What were the criteria? How did you feel when you had to choose the HRs? Did you take into account the others?
Human beings:
– “Did you find it easy / hard to choose which human rights to buy?
– Which human rights did you buy and why?
– How would these rights benefit your life?
– Which human rights did you not think were important? Why?
– What would be the impact of not having these rights?”
General class discussion on how they felt about this activity:
Were the situations difficult to deal with? Why? Which was more difficult to handle? Why?
How did they negotiate? Was it difficult? Why? Did students show respect for others’ ideas, even if they disagreed/ competed?
Links for further information
TESTING AND ASSESSMENT