Middle school just completed their unit study introducing forms of government, which partnered with their sustainability unit study of SDG #16 - Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.
We started by discussing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document ratified by the original 48 participating countries of the United Nations. Today, all 193 Member States have signed the Declaration. If you would like to read the Declaration, you can find it here.
Through our humanities discussions, group work, and independent review, students gained understanding of all thirty articles listed in the Declaration. Further, we learned about various government ruling bodies, ranging from autocracies to democracies. Students identified types of government in some of our current countries from around the globe and categorized why government in some form is needed. In finishing this unit, we are now prepared to dive into the American Revolutionary War and how our own government came to exist.
As a connecting piece of our government unit, middle school students also studied the Pyramid of Hate. This visual learning tool exemplifies how humans are capable of our worst atrocities and how we allow large scale human destruction, such as genocide. We explained that hate at such a high level happens from small building blocks that create a foundation for more and more destructive behaviors. Then we challenged them to create their own Pyramid of Resistance. In a world where many, us included, may often be bystanders, how can we instead lead as UPstanders? They are currently working in partners to make their Pyramids of Resistance. These visual tools will be useful aids as we work our way through modern history in humanities.
(I will say, while we do honestly have engaged fun while learning, taking photos of middle school can pose challenging at times.)
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