HUMAN RIGHTS The pen is mightier...


Amnesty International’s Nicky Parker discusses the links between human rights and literature and looks at some of the books which teachers could use to harness the power of story-telling


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TorY-TellINg, ACCorDINg to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is: “The ancient and powerful way we humans have always used to communicate. Throughout our lives we tell stories and we listen to them, and when we do this we are building bridges. our stories are


carried on our breath into the minds and hearts of others.” our ability and need to communicate is fundamental


to a well functioning society; you could say that freedom of expression is central to being human. It is because of this that human rights organisation Amnesty International, which upholds and campaigns for the right to freedom of expression, has always taken a keen interest in literature and the arts. In recent years it has promoted literature for young


people, publicly endorsing and co-publishing a wide range of fiction. The books include some hard-hitting novels for young adults, on themes such as conflict in the Middle east or sex trafficking. They also include picture books such as bob graham’s gloriously touching How to Heal a Broken Wing (about a little boy and a pigeon), and Michael Foreman’s A Child’s Garden (showing new life in war).


Independent thinking Thanking our teachers


PeoPle, be they politicians, education officials or tabloid journalists, are too often ready to criticise our british schools. We are always being compared unfavourably


to those in other countries, such as Sweden and Singapore. At this time of the school year it is all too evident exactly how good an experience our schools provide and how much they enrich our students. Yes, we have the most over-


examined pupils in the world, but I think they probably have the most fun as well, when they are liberated from the iron grip of testing regimes, as they are at the end of the summer term. of course, I can only speak about


the schools which I know, but in what other country would you find such a wonderful array of activities? In recent weeks, pupils of all ages have been participating in trips and expeditions, visiting other countries, undertaking exchanges, enjoying outdoor education activities, camping, sailing, rock climbing and orienteering. Cultural visits to places of


significance, such as Canterbury Cathedral, the british Museum, the Tate galleries, the Houses of Parliament and theatres abound. older students visit universities, attend lectures, explore hospital laboratories, and undertake work-shadowing. Now is the time that our schools


hold tea parties and concerts for the elderly and infirm and join with other schools for sporting activities. At our school we are enjoying inter-house competitions in athletics, rounders and tennis, complete with running commentaries from some of our wittier members of staff. The younger pupils are performing their play this


week (a new adaptation of Alice for a cast of 50!) and we have just had Jazz Night.our main orchestral concert is yet to come. once our term ends, the music staff don’t stop – before they take the choir and orchestra on tour


to Italy, we will be holding an all-day Primary Schools’ Singing Festival for children from 10 local schools. later in the holiday, the South london Youth orchestra, which is actually four orchestras to cater for different grades of players, not to mention Jazz orchestra, will take up residence for their summer course, as will our Youth Theatre company. Meanwhile some of our older girls will be performing at the edinburgh Fringe Festival along with students from other local schools. our annual Founder’s Day


happens in the summer term, too – with stalls and dance displays, water polo and other


sports, water rockets, quizzes, musical performances and poetry


in many languages. I have only touched on the surface of the huge number of events


and activities which we teachers in british schools provide as a matter of course for our students. They work hard, but they play


hard, too. I am not sure that such a feast is available in many other countries. our aim is to give our students as many different experiences as we can, to open their minds to possibilities and equip them with a store which they can revisit later in life. That surely is what true education


is all about? All of this, of course, relies on the goodwill, enthusiasm and commitment of our teachers. It has been disheartening to read and hear so many negative comments about teachers in the media lately, prompted by the recent


industrial action. Teachers are responsible for igniting the


imagination of our young people and perhaps kindling a lifelong passion for a particular activity. Surely that is worthy of thanks and praise?


• Marion Gibbs is headmistress of the independent James Allen’s Girls’ School in London. Independent thinking will return in September.


Reading human rights: The Amnesty anthologies on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – We Are All Born Free and FREE? – Bob Graham’s How to Heal a Broken Wing and Patricia McCormick’s Sold


Who would think, for example, that Paddington


bear could be used to discuss how refugees can be treated kindly and with respect? but author Michael bond wrote to Amnesty saying that of course Paddington is a refugee, adding: “Part of the inspiration for him was rooted in my childhood memories of seeing trainloads of small children arriving in reading with a label around their neck and all their possessions in a small suitcase when they were evacuated from london at the start of the last war. His best friend, and the one person in the books who really understands him, is Mr gruber, who is a refugee from Hungary.” From Paddington bear to the experience of a


child soldier in Kashmir in Jane Mitchell’s powerful Chalkline, an Amnesty-endorsed title for teenagers, is not such a great leap in terms of imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes. likewise with Patricia McCormick’s Sold, a story of sex-trafficking that manages to be both poignant and beautiful. Novels that deal with such hard-hitting topics need


to rise above ordinary writing and offer the reader a narrative structure that reassures and moves forwards. An Amnesty endorsement on a book is a statement of confidence; it can also mean that a page or so at the end of the book is devoted to brief age-appropriate information about what Amnesty is doing on the particular issue and how the young reader can take action if he or she feels so compelled. We know that teachers find these endorsements helpful, because they have told us so. A growing number of authors and illustrators –


including best-sellers Michael Morpurgo, Malorie blackman, David Almond, Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson – are contributing their work to the human rights cause. Most of them make it clear to us that they want


their work to be used in human rights education first and foremost because they care about the imaginative,


SecEd • July 7 2011


personal and social development of their young readers. Some of their stories and illustrations have been used to superb (and prize-winning effect) in Amnesty’s two anthologies on the Universal Declaration of Human rights –We Are All Born Free and FREE? but let’s give the last word to bob graham, the


award-winning illustrator and creator of the wonderful How to Heal a Broken Wing (where, incidentally, not only does the little boy notice and care for the injured pigeon, he sets it free). Mr graham said: “A little girl once asked me at a


book talk at Cheltenham (and kids tend to do this, ask questions that come winging in like a guided missile): ‘bob graham,’ she said, ‘why do you read books?’ “It set me back a peg I can tell you, and sweat


broke out on my palms. After some nervous shuffling and throat clearing I answered: ‘To imagine for just a moment what it might be like to be someone else – to live somewhere else, or to look out of someone else’s eyes, even a dog’s, or a pig in a waistcoat, or a duck in a truck.’ “It seems to me that here at such an early


age, in children’s books, we should be celebrating differences as well as cosy home-grown certainties. And through books, and through libraries, so vitally important, our children can grow and imagine what it might be like to be in someone else’s shoes. This is surely where empathy starts. And with empathy and understanding comes tolerance, and who knows? Then they may have a world with some of the fear taken out of it.”


SecEd


• Nicky Parker is a publisher at Amnesty International UK.


Further information


You can find out more about Amnesty endorsed fiction at www.amnesty.org.uk/books and the charity’s teaching resources at www.amnesty.org.uk/education


7 Using fiction to express complex ideas to children


is nothing new. To those passionate about books, they can be a very engaging way of exploring human rights. even if young people are not too keen on reading, most of them enjoy stories, which resonate and capture our imaginations in a way that nothing else can. Stories, as Archbishop Tutu indicates, are a way


to make sense of the world around us, to entertain ourselves and, often, to comfort ourselves in times of stress. And good teachers use books all the time for these very reasons, as well as to refine students’ thinking processes, their capacity to comprehend narrative, and their analytical and discursive abilities. Novels and memoirs are capable of personalising


otherwise appallingly abstract statistics. How does anyone, adult or child, truly comprehend the millions dead of the Holocaust? but Anne Frank’s Diary moves us to tears not just for her but for all the others too. From that emotion it is not such a hard step to understand the abstract-sounding principles of human rights: at the point of caring about Anne’s fate, young readers want to know what can be done to stop it happening again. It is this fundamental capacity of literature to touch


hearts and minds that makes it such an important tool in human rights education. Carefully crafted novels that explore other ways of being can work magic in overcoming prejudice. Feelings of prejudice towards others often arise out


of our inherent fear and intolerance of “difference” – whether it is different clothes, foods, languages or hairstyles. Prejudice leads too often to aggression and conflict, but compelling fiction can help to develop empathy – and empathy is a key to understanding and promoting human rights values. And back to the picture book and novels for young


children: there are many of these, too, that include concepts of human rights, even if we do not notice them. Many can be used as a basis for discussion in lower secondary classes. Kindness, gentleness and tolerance are some of the positive faces of human rights in action, as is the willingness to stand up and say no in the face of injustice.


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