Curriculum Overview/Review by Carrie Levy, San Leandro High School

"Lesson 4: U.S.-Sino Relations with a Focus on Human Rights" in
Understanding China in the 21st Century: Political, Economic, and Security Issues in the Asia/Pacific Region

A curriculum unit for grades: Secondary - Community College
248 pages/6 lessons
Includes: Audiotape
Price: $54.95
Published by Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE)
This unit may be purchased on-line at http://spice.stanford.edu/index.html

Goals and Objectives

Lesson Overview

Standards

Goals and Objectives:

In this unit, students are asked to critically examine the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, focusing in particular on how some countries consider it an international standard for all people, while other nations refuse to accept its standards. Students use their understanding of this clash of value systems to make sense of the diplomatic tension between China and United States.

Unit Objectives:

to recognize that the relationship between two nations is influenced by a number of factors, most prominently different value systems
to understand that different groups of people have differing perspectives on the same situation
to explore a number of ways in which people can express their views about domestic and international events, whether they participate in these events directly or not.

The unit uses artistic expression to draw in students. Students analyze poetry, music and cartoons. Students are expected to write their own poetry, draw their own political cartoons, and put on a talk show.

The unit only implicitly addresses how such conflicts over values might be ameliorated. If the teacher intends to connect these global issues with students' own experiences of conflict, he or she will have to make sure this becomes explicit in discussion.

Lesson Overview:

The unit consists of five lessons:

1. International Voices. Students read and discuss the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Using a "Values Survey," each student identifies what values he or she considers most important and then discuss differences with other class members. The lesson concludes with a discussion of whether universal values exist.
2. Personal Voices. Students read and discuss two poems that express their author's interpretation of a socio-political event- the Rodney King beating and Tiananmen Square- in their own country. In small groups, students list the values they see expressed in the poems, write their own poems, and discuss how larger issues and events affect individuals' value systems.
3. Asian-American Voices. Students listen to a jazz piece by an Asian-American entitled "Tiananmen!" and brainstorm ideas about what the pieces means. Students read and discuss an interview with the artist. The discussion should revolve around how different people within a country often have different opinions and values.
4. Voices from the Media. Students examine a political cartoon that illustrates the hypocrisy China finds with the United States' position on human rights. Students evaluate how their own attitudes about China and its human rights record have been influenced by our media. Students then draw their own political cartoon.
5. Governmental Voices. In small groups students read an excerpt from either a U.S. or Chinese governmental document that criticizes the other country's human rights record. After identifying and discussing their country's main arguments, the groups face-off in a mock talk show to debate the issues.

Placement in the Curriculum/ Standards

This unit could fit into three places in the World History of curriculum, as defined by the California state standards.

1. Creation of the United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was one of the first documents produced by the United Nations.

10.9 Students analyze the international developments in the post- World War II world.

8. Discuss the establishment and work of the United Nations and the purposes and functions of the Warsaw Pact, SEATO, NATO, and the Organization of American States.

2. International Relations during the Cold War.

10.10 Students analyze instances of nation-building in the contemporary world in at least two of the following regions or countries: the Middle East, Africa, Mexico and other parts of Latin America, and China.
1. Understand the challenges in the regions, including their geopolitical, cultural, military, and economic significance and the international relationships in which they are involved.

3. Globalism.

10.11 Students analyze the integration of countries into the world economy and the information, technological, and communications revolutions (e.g., television, satellites, computers). Top of the page

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