Story of Our Rights and Freedoms - Understanding Democracy

This lesson is designed to build students’ competencies in the following skills:

• Collaboration
• Social skills
• Communication

Australian Curriculum content descriptions:

Year 8 Civics and Citizenship:

• How Australians are informed about and participate in democracy (AC9HC8K01)
• The characteristics of laws and how laws are made in Australia through parliaments (statutory law) and through the courts (common law) (AC9HC8K03)
• Locate, select and organise information, data and ideas from different sources (AC9HC8S02)

General capabilities: Literacy, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, Ethical Understanding. 

Relevant parts of year 8 achievement standards: Students explain how Australians are informed about and participate in their democracy. They explain the characteristics of laws, how laws are made and the types of law in Australia. Students develop questions and locate, select and organise relevant information from different sources to investigate political and legal systems, and contemporary civic issues.

Unit of work: Story of Our Rights and Freedoms – Human Rights and Democracy

Time required: 120 mins.

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium - teacher to lead students through multiple interactive activities.

• Student Worksheet – one copy per student
• Device capable of audio/visual presentation to present a website to the class
• Sticky notes
• Butcher’s paper (optional)
• Democracy Factsheet
• Device capable of accessing an online webpage (one per student)
• Reflection Pyramid Printout (optional – also available on the Student Worksheet)

Throughout the Story of Our Rights and Freedoms lessons, students will consider Civics and Citizenship concepts through a human rights lens. They will critically assess the Australian system of government and the effect that it has on our rights and freedoms.

There is no universally accepted definition of human rights, and our understanding is continually developing. Some definitions include:

• The recognition and respect of peoples’ dignity
• A set of moral and legal guidelines that promote and protect the recognition of our values, our identity and access to an adequate standard of living
• The basic standards by which we can identify and measure inequality and fairness
• Those rights associated with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

When we talk about human rights we usually refer to principles that have been agreed upon by countries throughout the world. These rights have been set down in international agreements and form part of international law. They can also be written into the domestic law of individual countries. Human rights cover virtually every area of human life and activity. These include:

• Civil and political rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom from torture
• Economic and social rights, such as the rights to health and education
• Individual rights, including the right to a fair trial
• Collective rights, or those rights that apply to groups of people, such as the right to a healthy environment or to live on one’s ancestral land.

The UDHR is an international document that recognises the basic rights and fundamental freedoms to which all human beings are entitled. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 and marks a key milestone in the history of human rights. The Magna Carta, though limited in who it protected, was an important precursor to the UDHR.

Click here to watch a video about the Magna Carta.

You can view the entire text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the other core international human rights treaties, on the United Nation’s website or by downloading RightsApp (free from the iTunes App store).