Professional Development of Human Rights

When introducing human rights education, teachers necessarily become key players in modeling human rights learning and practice.

Teachers will develop knowledge and understanding about:

• Human rights, their universality, indivisibility and interdependence and about protection mechanisms;
• Educational theories underlying human rights education, including links between formal, non-formal, and informal education;
• Links between human rights education and other similar types of education (education for sustainable development, peace education, global education, multicultural education, citizenship and values education.);
• Learning objectives of human rights education, especially skills and competencies;
• Teaching and learning methodologies for human rights education and the role of teachers in human rights education;
• Social skills and leadership styles which are democratic and coherent in terms of human rights;
• The classroom as a human rights-based community;
• Relations within the classroom and between the classroom, the school and the wider community;
• Collaborative methods and teamwork;
• Evaluation and assessment of human rights education;
• Information about existing educational materials for human rights education and the ability to review and chose from among them, as well as to develop new materials;
• Learner-centered approaches, addressing motivation, self-esteem and emotional development leading to awareness raising about values and behaviour;
• Appropriate methods for teaching human rights education such as participatory, interactive, cooperative and experience and practice-based methods; linking theory to practice; testing learned techniques in real life situations, especially in the classroom;
• Collecting and sharing good practices in human rights education;
• Networking and cooperation with other human rights educators.

The development of these skills is a requirement to ensure a successful Human Rights Education Program.

[Adapted from the appendix to the World Programme for Human Rights – Plan of Action for the First Phase (2005-2007) (United Nations 59th session, agenda item 105 (b))]