Public School In USA

The United Nations Convention about the Rights of the Child put forth that one primary reason for schools would be to develop respect for human rights and also the fundamental freedoms that all children should enjoy. They noted that to genuinely understand and promote human rights, one has to live them in regards to others.

Nyc has had this directive seriously and also to heart by creating its School for Human Rights, a combined middle and high school academy that’s built for this concept. It’s one of nearly 150 small public schools opened through special initiatives in the last 3 years by New York City. Having opened in September 2004 within the 2005-2006 year, the college of Human Rights had over 180 students.

Located in Brooklyn, the School is rare, even for the NYC schools. Its core values are dignity, respect and responsibility, which is the power behind its curriculum. The way the students learn and the teachers teach, the way they treat one another, and the types of adults the New York City schools hope the scholars become. Human rights are demonstrated to students by how the college meets the educational needs of each student; in its practices, such as discipline with dignity; examples succumbed class, questions raised by teachers, the active discussions, critical thinking and reflection that are area of the project-based coursework; as well as the enriching field trips.

This school may be the just one in Nyc that integrates an academic and social skills-based curriculum. It even immerses its theme into its extracurricular activities, for example film festivals and workshops with human rights defenders.

The school challenges the New York City students being compassionate and socially engaged young adults, who are committed to equality, dignity and social consciousness. Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Education Association, and New Visions for Public Schools, who have partnered with the schools in New York City making this curriculum possible, aspire to see many of these Nyc students carry over what they learn into their adult lives, as well as to enter social justice careers.

The NYC schools based the curriculum on UNICEF’s framework to:

o Recognize the rights of every child;

o Begin to see the whole child inside a broad context, in the home environment in addition to at school;

o Be child centered, ensuring the psychological and social wellness of every child;

o Be gender sensitive and girl friendly by eliminating stereotypes and constraints to education, while promoting achievement;

o Promote quality learning outcomes;

o Base education on each child’s unique identity, previous school experience, community, and family;

o Promote NYC schools’ student rights and responsibilities inside the school environment, including ensuring inclusion, respect and equality of chance of each child;

o Enhance Nyc schools’ teacher capacity, morale, commitment and status, and

o Be family focused.

To guarantee the School teachers possess the resources and professional development they need, a persons Rights Education Association provides this support to the New York City schools. Teachers have found that the most difficult task is presenting the curriculum inside a meaningful and empowering manner, making human rights more than an abstract concept.

In the public school systems to day, there is still a rumbling going on about how to teach a sexual education class. Would you just teach about how exactly safe with sex, by using condoms, etc … or do you teach sexual abstinence only … or do you teach both? Free Teens USA believes you’re teaching both just by teaching sexual abstinence.

There is nothing but statistics to support the claims to remain safe by practicing abstinence. Firstly, it’s really a common sense approach. If you don’t make a move, you can get in danger for it. We really don’t need to allow it to be anymore complicated that that. It’s kind of like speeding. The only real method to guarantee you won’t get a speeding ticket is to not speed. Sure, you might speed if there are no cops there and you simply could easily get away with it. But someday you’re going to get caught. This goes true for sex.

If you’re teaching our kids, in school, safe sex means using protection; they believe it’s OK to possess pre-marital sex as long as they use protection. The issue with this theory is it isn’t 100% effective. They are able to get pregnant, STDs, as well as worse: HIV/Aids. So, why don’t you teach our youth the reality regarding the numbers?

Here is an eye-opening statistic I discovered:

* From 1990 – 2000, teenage (age 15-19) pregnancies decreased 28%
* From 1991 – 2001, teenagers reporting an abstinence lifestyle rose from 45.9% to 54.5% (almost a 10% increase)

I believe the truth is within the numbers. If you get more teenagers to practice abstinence, then the teenage pregnancies lowers. This is actually the message the non-profit organization, Free Teens USA, is trying to get across in their Teenage Leadership Curriculum.

In reality, the teaching of sexual education ought to be coming from directly from the parents. We ought to not be relying on the teachers to teach our kids this extremely important section of life. But if the teachers are going to teach it, they ought to train it to say correctly, and abstinence should be the center piece of the program.