Human Rights

A Model Curriculum

There is no more urgent task for educators in the field of history and social science than to teach students about the importance of human rights and to analyze with them the actual instances in which genocide— the ultimate violation of human rights— has been committed. We study the atrocities of the past not only to preserve their significance as historical events but also to help dents about identify ways to prevent the atrocities from ever happening again.

Concern for human rights is a major element in the History-Social Science human rights Framework for California Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve. This concern is an important ingredient in several different learning strands and recurs in a variety of forms. The ethical literacy strand is based on the “recognition of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the individual.” In the constitutional heritage strand, students learn about the evolution of democratic lights and of guarantees for the individual against government tyranny or against oppression by the majority. In the civic literacy strand (“civic values, committed. rights, and responsibilities”), students learn why being an informed citizen is important in a democratic society. In the national identity strand, students learn to appreciate the pluralistic nature of American society. In the socio political strand, students examine the role of law in our society as a safeguard for individual rights and freedoms and compare democratic and nondemocratic
political systems.

Because these learning strands appear across the curriculum, attention is directed to issues of human rights in every history course, including United States history and world history. The study of human rights and genocide requires intellectual honesty and moral courage, for no nation or society in human history has been totally innocent of human rights abuses. It is
necessary to acknowledge unflinchingly the instances in United States history when our own best ideals were betrayed by the systematic mistreatment of group members because of their race, religion, culture, language, gender, or political views. When studying other societies, we must be equally candid. Whether historical or contemporary, human rights abuses must be acknowledged, and students must learn that individuals and groups have been tortured, murdered, confined to psychiatric hospitals, or subjected to discriminatory treatment because of their race, religion, culture, gender, political views, or other personal characteristics that make them “different.”

Genocide is the denial to groups of the right to live and the deliberate destruction of racial, ethnic, national, or religious groups. Although genocide has inflicted great suffering on humanity throughout history, its existence as a general crime was not evident until the twentieth century. The wholesale massacre of the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to
1923 was denounced as a “crime against civilization” by the world community.