Human Rights University for a Day

Today, Montclair State University students who took part in the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education Project internship taught at Human Rights University for a Day at Montclair High School, in Montclair, New Jersey. This event was a fantastic example of community engagement by CEHS students.

The interns worked alongside human rights education professionals throughout the Spring 2022 semester, conducted a research project on a human rights topic of their choice, and developed and taught a lesson plan on that topic. This competitive internship also included participation in the three-credit course, EDFD 445 Human Rights Education.

The high school students each attended three presentations as part of the Center for Social Justice at MHS. These students were so smart, engaged, and eager to participate. Additionally, their teachers and administrators were very gracious in hosting the group.

The program included:

• Debates over Teaching Critical Race Theory
• Trans Youth ActivismHealth Care Access
• School Segregation
• The Syrian Refugee Crisis
• Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation
• Maternal Health Care
• Latinx Activism
• Educational Equality
• The Family Separation Crisis at the US Border
• Health Care for Trans Youth
• Internet Privacy
• Free Speech on the Internet
• The Wage Gap
• Body Image and Health

Dr. Zoë Burkholder is the director of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education Project and a professor of Educational Foundations. She is a historian of education whose expertise includes antiracist education, school desegregation, and civil rights history. Dr. Burkholder is the author of An African American Dilemma: A History of School Integration and Civil Rights in the North (Oxford University Press, 2021), Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education(University of Chicago Press, 2021), and Color in the Classroom: How American Schools Taught Race, 1900-1954 (Oxford University Press, 2011) as well as numerous scholarly articles and commentaries. She may be contacted at burkholderz@montclair.edu.

Special thanks to The ADP Center for Learning Technologies for training our students on how to deliver the very best high-tech, interactive lessons. Their lessons were a hit!