Human Rights: A Subject Neglected in School

My major trip this summer was to visit other parts of New York, due to my own desire to explore more of the state I was born in and grew up in. One of the many places I visited was Eleanor Roosevelt’s Val-Kill Cottage, about 90 miles north of New York City. 

Yes, Eleanor Roosevelt was known for being President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s wife. While she was influential with FDR, a more forgotten part of her legacy was in chairing the United Nations committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

And as I was thinking about this major contribution she made, I realized that I wasn’t taught about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in school. In fact, I’m not sure I even knew about it before I interned with Gray Panthers back when I was in college. 

And then, as I was talking with friends about this realization, others told me that they, too, weren’t taught about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in school.

Especially given how much human rights are being violated, both within the United States and around the world, this failure to teach about human rights to our kids is a moral failing of massive proportions. How can we know that we are entitled to certain basic rights if we aren’t taught what those basic rights are?

In fact, as much as I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist, a part of me wonders whether the reason for not teaching these rights is precisely so that we are left ignorant of the rights we are entitled to, the rights that are so often ignored and disregarded. Because if our general public knew about all the rights that are being disregarded by our own country, or by certain other countries around the world, there would be demands for accountability and change of policies…or else a change of leaders who will strive to ensure those rights.

Regardless of whether my theory has any truth to it or not, I think that this lack of education on human rights (at least in the United States) means a few things…

First, all of us have a responsibility to familiarize ourselves with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

Second, when our human rights are violated by our own government, we have a responsibility to hold our government accountable for those violations.

Third, those of us with positions of power to determine kids’ education (teachers, those who sit on school boards, textbook writers, curriculum writers, etc.) must actively work to include opportunities for kids to learn about the human rights they are entitled to.

I cannot guarantee that hunger, poverty, murder, etc. would be eradicated even if we did these three things. But I do think we’d be aware of the rights not being granted to us, and that is an important start.