High school vice principal Tetyana Kozhevnikova is eager to share with teachers and students all over Ukraine what she learned at the November 2013 teacher training workshop in Kyiv on the use of a new multimedia teacher’s guide titled Where do Human Rights Begin: History and Contemporary Approaches.

The comprehensive multimedia teacher’s guide was approved by Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science in November 2013, and authored by educator Oleksandr Voytenko, historian Mikhail Tyagly and human rights education specialist Serhiy Burov. The guide features a video component on DVD consisting of excerpts of testimonies of survivors of totalitarian regimes from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive, and testimonies of forced labor victims from EVZ’s “Forced Labor 1939-1945: Memory and History” archive.

Kozhevnikova said she wanted to participate in the training to increase her knowledge about the practical implementation of human rights, and learn innovative methods of teaching about human rights. School-wide curriculum about the subject is already in place at her school, Gymnasium No. 5 in Pryluky.

The most challenging aspect of teaching teens about human rights is the European court cases, Kozhevnikova said, because the international mechanisms of human rights protection requires significant knowledge and preparation to teach.

At the Where do Human Rights Begin training, Kozhevnikova was moved by the testimonies she watched. She found testimony about forced labor and the deplorable conditions in which people were transported to Germany especially important.

“We have not studied this at Soviet schools and universities,” Kozhevnikova said.

She also appreciated a session about managing emotion in the classroom.

Kozhevnikova has already conducted seminars at her school for history teachers and tutors about using video testimonies to teach about human rights, and has also shared her experiences with vice principals at other schools in the city.

Other teachers should use Where do Human Rights Begin because “it’s a great program,” Kozhevnikova said.

“It allows for teaching about human rights and its practical implications, about history of totalitarian regimes and how it is relevant for contemporary life,” she said, noting that students get higher grades on the assignments because the lessons are interesting to them.