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Atelier 4 - Enseignement des Droits de la Personne (Présenté par la Section Enseignement)

W417 - Workshop 4 - Roundtable: Human Rights Classrooms: Navigating Safe Spaces in Unsafe Times

Date: Jun 5 | Heure: 10:15am to 11:45am | Salle:

Saad Khan (University of Winnipeg)
Kristi Kenyon (University of Winnipeg)
Lloyd Kornelsen (University of Winnipeg)
Matthew Hamilton (University of Winnipeg)

Abstract: Classrooms are intellectual safe spaces where ideally teachers and students engage in critical problem-solving to ascertain a truth. Such ascertainment involves a robust discussion on issues that may be deemed inappropriate or even harmful by some students. This applies especially to a human rights classroom, where instructors have to teach painful and heart-wrenching issues such as genocides, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Can instructors navigate these turbulent waters by maintaining a balance between the requirements of their profession and the paradigm shifts of the milieu? This roundtable brings together human rights educators who grapple with the issues of academic freedom, free speech, critical thinking, and academic discourse in human rights classrooms at the university level. Questions that the roundtable endeavors to answer include: Should human rights educators discuss traumatizing issues in a classroom? Can human rights educators discuss such issues in a classroom while maintaining a safe space for students? In a human rights classroom, what is more critical, discussing unpopular and difficult views or ensuring the well-being of students? Is the right to academic freedom a human right? Whether academic freedom and free speech differ in a classroom setting? Is a human rights classroom a forum for social change or a space for intellectual discourse?

Atelier 4 - Enseignement des Droits de la Personne (Présenté par la Section Enseignement)

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