Another principle which the so-called human rights educator is supposed to abide by is that of being 'unemotional'. A very strange and inappropriate quality to aim for, it seems to me, and I have always found it hard to accept, let alone to observe it. Why might it be thought to be desirable for a human rights educator, of all people, to be detached from his or her emotions (at least while in the process of educating)?
I suspect that the reasons are the following:
1. We should be 'professionals': we are facilitators, above all, and that requires adopting a neutral position
2. Emotions get in the way
3. We are not supposed to 'push' a line, 'impose' our opinion; we are supposed to allow participants to find their own answers
I think there are two key objections to this position, apart from the particular responses to those points. The first is that I am genuinely not sure how you should detach yourself from your emotions, particularly if you care about human rights (and therefore about humans): is it possible, for example, to discuss the death penalty, torture in Iraq, the holocaust unemotionally?
The second objection is that I wonder how useful 'unemotional' education is going to be in promoting the goals of HRE. I see one of the main problems we are trying to resolve as being a lack of emotional response to the horrors that surround us. Most people care about their own child, their own immediate family or circle of friends; and the human rights violations that occur in the world are mostly (I think - but with the obvious and resounding counter-example of domestic violence) against those outside this circle. If there was a similar emotional response to children in Rwanda and in the UK, the British government would not have gone out of its way to prevent UN peacekeepers from going in to stop the genocide. Should an educator be unemotional about such facts?
So now for the specific objections to reasons 1 - 3 above:
1. There is no such thing as neutrality. A lack of response sends just as important a message as a condemnation or positive approval. There are certain issues where this is obvious - for example, responses to torture or sexual exploitation of children - but in fact it applies to every issue. An attitude of 'not caring' (even if you really don't) is still an attitude. See hammer action for more on this.
2. Yes, sometimes emotions get in the way. If only the victims of torture would feel nothing the world would be a cleaner, calmer place. But it seems bizarre to ask of an educator in human rights that he or she should tone down an emotional response to injustice, cruelty, violence, dishonesty, apathy - particularly when empathy is supposed to be one of the qualities we try to encourage in those we educate. Perhaps: in those we educate, but not ourselves?
3. We 'push a line' just as strongly by refusing to comment, as we do by offering our opinion (think of hammer action). To assume that stating our opinion (emotionally) is giving those we educate no possibility to formulate their own responses is to adopt a very poor opinion of those we educate. Do we hit them on the head until they agree with us? And anyway: if we care about the responses they do formulate, and we care that these responses are thought through, chosen because they are appealing, sympathetic and sensible - then is it not partly our role to help them find the best arguments (both rational and emotional)? We still can - and should - provide them with the best arguments for the other side as well
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Strangely, that guru of the HRE community, Paolo Freire, was pretty clear about the need for an educator to argue for her own position, for her own dreams:
What kind of educator would I be if I did not feel moved by a powerful impulse to seek, without lying, convincing arguments in defense of the dreams for which I struggle, in defence of the 'why' of the hope with which I act as an educator?
(from Pedagogy of Hope)