CHAPTER SEVEN Selected Student A Review Richard W. Fogg State University College at Buffalo (N.Y.) I. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this chapter is to provide a critical review of selected student materials dealing with the four principal topics (international understanding, cooperation, peace and human rights) of the UNESCO Recommendation. This effort is intended to help classroom teachers, curriculum writers, administrators and policymakers locate effective student materials and identify existing needs. The chapter contains suggestions for background readings followed by detailed information about materials for students that deal with the principal topics of the UNESCO Recommendation. The brief review of each book or pamphlet suggested for classroom usage includes a content description and evaluation as well as other useful information. The reviews found in this chapter are organized into five sections. The first presents reviews of teaching materials that address in a reasonably integrated fashion all topics of the UNESCO Recommendation. The remaining sections review materials for students that deal with only one of the four principal topics of the UNESCO Recommendation. The chapter concludes with suggestions on how to organize these materials for use in a single course and on how to integrate them into existing courses. II. BACKGROUND READINGS The preceding chapters of this book contain specialized background information on all of the principal topics of the UNESCO Recommendation as well as helpful bibliographic references. The chapters dealing with international human rights are, moreover, designed to provide the non-specialist with accurate up-to-date information on this subject and citations to leading books and articles in the field. An international relations text providing useful and concise background information on international cooperation is K.J. Holsti, International Politics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1972). I know of no recent book summarizing peace research, but a good, thorough reader is Peace and War by Charles R. Beitz and Theodore Herman (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1973). Herbert J. Abraham's World Problems in the Classroom: A Teacher's Guide to some United Nations Tasks (Paris: UNESCO, 1973) is a first rate source of information on United Nations activities involving international peace, human rights, and related economic and social problems. Stimulating analytical questions appropriate for classroom discussion are included in each chapter of Abraham's book. Some Suggestions on Teaching about Human Rights (authored and published by UNESCO, Paris, 1968) is thorough, but partially outdated. The same is true of A Guide to Human Rights Education by Paul D. Hines and Leslie Wood (National Council for the Social Studies, Bulletin 43, 1969). Both books contain valuable bibliographic information and the texts of major human rights documents. Another more narrowly focused source is Apartheid: Its Effects on Education, Science, Culture, and Information (Paris: UNESCO, 1972). The development of international human rights instruments and an excellent introduction to the subject as a whole are included in Louis B. Sohn, "A Short History of United Nations Documents on Human Rights," in The United Nations and Human Rights pp. 39-186 (18th Report of the Comm'n to Study the Organization of Peace, 1968), available from Oceana Publications, Inc., Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. A non-technical work on international law, written for high school students but also appropriate for teachers who wish a general introduction to international law and organizations, is Richard Deming's Man and the World, International Law at Work, (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1974). William Nesbitt and Andrea Karl's Teaching Interdependence: Exploring Global Challenge Through Data (New York: Center for International Programs, 1975) is a good source of data for use in inquiry teaching methods. In addition to those works, there are other books which deal primarily with the teaching of peace and justice. For example, Christoph Wulf's Handbook on Peace Education (1974; available from the Institute for World Order, New York, N.Y.) is a collection of essays by scholars from various countries discussing peace education from a number of different perspectives. William Nesbitt's Teaching about War and War Prevention (N.Y.: T.Y. Crowell, 1971) performs a similar task, although its approach is more practical without, however, being unscholarly. Learning Peace by Grace Abrams and Fran Schmidt (Philadelphia: Jane Addams Peace Ass'n, 1972) is a fine junior high school resource unit on the same subject. The National Education Association has recently prepared a most useful list of materials related to global interdependence. It includes media programs and simulation games in addition to the student materials reviewed in this chapter. The list is reproduced in the Appendix. A periodical for teachers that focuses on peace and justice is Intercom (Center for War/Peace Studies, 218 E. 18 St., New York, N.Y. 10003). It contains complete lesson plans which are suitable for students of all ability levels. This journal also provides teachers with current information about peace and justice issues and alerts them to new teaching materials. III. REVIEWS OF TEACHING MATERIALS A. Review Criteria Six sets of criteria have determined the choice of the materials selected for review in this chapter. First, global education criteria were applied to ascertain whether the material is truly global in its perspective; that is, whether it helps students see the world as an interacting social system. Second, criteria derived from the social studies reform movement of the last decade were taken into account by inquiring whether several cognitive and affective levels are covered, whether a variety of disciplines are drawn upon, and whether different presentation styles are used. Third, the selection was also influenced by more traditional educational criteria which are concerned with the question whether the material is interesting and promotes a love of knowledge (e.g.,history as story telling), and whether discussion questions that are likely to pool ignorance are avoided. Fourth, criteria commonly used in textbook selection and adoption which look to the appropriateness of the reading level, whether the material is up-to-date, whether the non-print material is attractive, etc., were also taken into account. Fifth, teacher-acceptability was another relevant criterion, for example, whether teachers will order the materials, whether they are too expensive or contain unduly lengthy items on single topics. Finally, the value of any curriculum material depends in part upon the assumptions of its authors. The final set of criteria upon which the selection has been based therefore concerns the appropriateness of these assumptions judged in terms of whether they promote the principles of the UNESCO Recommendation. The trouble with using a complicated set of criteria like the above is that none of the suggested materials measure up to all of them. Due to space limitations, moreover, some good materials that meet these criteria may have been omitted.* Teachers may also find that the materials reviewed and categorized in one way here may be useful in their own classroom for purposes not anticipated in this chapter. B. Materials Covering All Four Topics of the UNESCO Recommendation 1. Peacemaking: A Guide to Conflict Resolution for Individuals, Groups, and Nations (paperback with Teachers' Guide). Barbara Stanford Bantam, 666 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10019 1976; grades 9-12, 320 pages. * See, in this connection, the NEA Peace Studies Exposition List of Materials reproduced in tne Appendix to this book. Note: The reading level is at the 8th grade or below for about half of the book and at the upper high school level for the rest. Applicable for nearly all courses since all social science disciplines and history are represented. Description and evaluation. This is a book of readings with exercises. It contains materials that is interesting, accurate, and sophisticated. It is the most recent, and one of few, curricula that provides a thorough treatment of the principal topics of the UNESCO Recommendation. This book deals with conflict resolution (including nonviolence), aggression, global identity, force and diplomacy, reorganizing society, and what the individual can do for peace. Human rights, however, receive only minimal coverage. One of Stanford's assumptions for developing materials is that students will themselves want to make changes in their own ways of thinking and behaving. Thus an exercise suggested for reducing racial prejudice, for example, explicitly invites students to examine their own attitudes on this issue. Because this reader is a survey, the teacher may wish to add depth and additional points of view by using the sources listed in the bibliography. 2. Public Issues Series/Harvard Social Studies Project 30 pamphlets (available separately) 50¢ apiece General teachers' guide and individual ones, including tests (free). Xerox Education Publications Education Center, Columbus, Ohio 43216. 1967 — 1972;pp. 64 and 48 @ pamphlet; grades 7 — 9 for average students; grades 912 for all students. Note: Appropriate for all social studies subjects except psychology and economics. U.S. history is stressed. Description and evaluation. This curriculum contains a broad selection of case materials dealing with the ideas basic to a liberal education and raises issues about them which have persisted through history; this has kept the series from becoming dated. This series teaches a value justification procedure which can help students make choices concerning the subjects of the UNESCO Recommendation. Moral issues are broken down to encourage students to choose between two good values in seeking a solution to a problem, rather than following the too frequently used method of having students reason out moral issues by pitting "good" values against "evil" ones. Issues are also broken down into factual, definitional, and prescriptive ones. The discussion questions in these materials start with a highly specific instance and then proceed to a more general issue, often by means of imaginative analogies. The materials include case studies and several role playing games. Many of the readings are taken from recent classics. What makes this curriculum particularly useful are the thoroughly researched historical, fictional and journalistic accounts which were found interesting by students in trial teaching situations. Four of the pamphlets in this series were prepared as a unit on international conflict control. They are entitled The Limits of War, Revolution and World Politics, Organizations Among Nations, and Diplomacy and International Law. This unit deals with international conflict control and includes such topics as non-violence, the causes of war, successful practices in avoiding war, and proposals for internaional structural changes. Other pamphlets in the series, Communist China, Colonial Africa: The Kenya Experience deal with different cultures. Still others, for example, Status and The Age of Jackson, are concerned with human rights issues and egalitarianism. Human rights material is also included in a section on Religious Freedom which focuses on early Christian martyrs and shows what it was like when people who professed beliefs similar to those held by many students today were denied their rights. Another case, discussed in Diplomacy and International Law, deals with apartheid in Namibia. It requires students to apply the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to judge conditions in Namibia and then invites them to apply the same standard to conditions in their own country. Several assumptions about the learning process as it relates to international education underlie this series of materials. Among these are, first, that international problems can be considered most effectively if broken down into specific issues and taken up one at a time; second, that concern for human rights issues and for people of other cultures is likely to develop out of sympathy for real or ficitional characters; and third, that through guided class discussions students will learn to make analytic distinctions, reason carefully, and therefore make wiser decisions regarding international matters. Teachers must, however, be alerted to problems inherent in this curriculum. It stresses questions dealing with policy, and demands a high level of moral maturity on the part of students when they grapple with the dilemmas presented by the discussion questions. The curriculum, furthermore, attempts to teach both reasoning and subject matter simultaneously. 3. Peacekeeping (paperback) by Jack Fraenkel, Margaret Carter, and Betty Reardon, 1973, 90 pages, 99¢, grades 8 12. The Struggle for Human Rights (paperback), same authors, 1975, 71 pages, 99¢, grades 8 12. The Cold War and Beyond (paperback), by Lawrence Metcalf, Betty Reardon, and Curtis Colby, 1975, 71 pages, grades 8 12. War Criminals, War Victims (paperback) by Betty Reardon et al, 1974, 57 pages, 99¢, grades 8-12. Note: Teachers' manuals for each 66¢; minimum order 10 copies. This unified program comes from two series. The first two titles are from Perspectives in World Order, Jack Fraenkel, series editor. The second two |