Vassar Class Presents Human Rights Lessons

POUGHKEEPSIE – Economics students at Poughkeepsie High School learned about human rights, migration and the impact on the economy thanks to a program designed and delivered by a team of Vassar College students.

Students in Maria Hantzopoulos’ Vassar College class present a lesson on human rights, migration and economics at Poughkeepsie High School Wednesday, May 11, 2022.

Nine students (Lily Thompson, Samantha Cavagnolo, Kevin McAuliffe, Malanie Hidalgo, Cyan Jackson, Felicity Rakochy, Arlen Chen, Valeria Munoz Gonzales and Jordan Shamoun) spent the first six weeks of the semester learning about the issue and developing the curriculum as part of Maria Hantzopoulos’ “Education 283: Our Lives, Our World” class. The team settled on six lessons, with three students working on each: What are human rights, migration and what people go through and how migration connects to our economy, Hantzopoulos said.

Hantzopoulos reached out to PHS teacher Shanna Andrawis whom she knew as a former Vassar student. Originally, the lesson was about human rights but once the two spoke, the economic impact was brought in.

Andrawis’ class served as a way for Vassar students to present the lessons and make adjustments. All the materials will be available for free to educators on the Our Lives, Our World website, which is still under construction.

“This is a good opportunity for our students to connect their learning with what Vassar College students are learning at the college level,” Andrawis said.

Each lesson strived to engage students, and this last one on the economic impact of migration and associated human rights certainly did.

After students reviewed fact sheets about the economic impact of migrants, students were asked a series of questions for a three corners exercise in which they first indicated on a sheet of paper whether they agreed, disagreed or felt otherwise about a statement related to the subject such as “Migrant workers contribute to the economy” or “Migrant workers should have the same rights as American workers.”

Then, they were asked to walk to a corner in the room and stand with those who felt similarly and speak to their reasons.

PHS senior Benjamin Nikolai Miranda moved to the “Other” corner for the question about rights. “Human rights, yes, but some such as the ability to obtain a passport should be different,” he said.

Afterward, Miranda said this lesson was the most impactful for him. “It’s a good program so everyone can understand migration and the contribution to the economy. “We talked about how migrants compare to American workers and how they should be equal and how we treat them and see everyone’s opinions.”

Miranda said he plans to attend Dutchess Community College’s nursing program and then transfer to the University of Buffalo to obtain his bachelor’s in nursing and eventually become a nurse practitioner.

Hantzopoulos’ goal is to continue the partnership between Vassar and PHS next year, but perhaps bring a different school subject into the mix.

Cavagnolo is a senior at Vassar who took the intensive because she was involved in studying migration and wrote articles online “but was looking for a way to get the material into a classroom.”

She too learned something from the experience of being in the classroom with students over a period of time.

“Honestly, what I found really helpful was learning what words and phrases the students responded to,” she said.

Aside from the learning that happened between students, the program had another benefit. One of the exercises presented by Vassar students inspired Andrawis who modified it for use in her Global History class to create a wall of Human Rights trees in her classroom.