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Date: 12/28/2021
AMHERST – For the eighth year, the Amherst Regional Middle School (ARMS) Art and Social Studies departments have teamed up with Amherst’s Amnesty International chapter to honor universal human rights with a student art display for the months of December and January.
Irene LaRoche, a seventh grade social studies teacher at ARMS, said the Amherst chapter of Amnesty International contacted her several years ago asking if middle school students and teachers would like to be a part of International Day of Human Rights work that they do every December since December is Human Rights Month. The idea is LaRoche and other teachers at the school would work with students on topics involving human rights, with a particular focus on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the time of this project, the school was not teaching that specific topic.
“The curriculum was something of interest to me,” said LaRoche. “It felt like something that would make sense to do with students.”
Since that connection occurred, the middle school has been participating in Human Rights Month for eight straight years. Various teachers have been a part of this project, and LaRoche has been involved since its inception. For the first time ever, the entire Social Studies Department took part in this year’s event, as well as the school’s art teacher Rodney Madison, UMass teaching intern Caroline Lee, and Special Education teacher Patrick Hunter. The entire seventh and eighth grade; which constitutes a total of 400-plus students; participated in the project.
Within their Global Studies course, seventh graders are learning a lot about the United Nations, which established their introduction to the U.N. and global cooperation. Eighth graders, meanwhile, are taking a civics course where they learn about government and human rights, as well as philosophers who contributed to the inception of the U.S. government. The students then looked at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to examine the kinds of rights people are talking about, and which ones have been applied in the modern U.S. government.
In this year’s project, students were asked to create artistic representations of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and wrote an artist statement to go along with it. According to LaRoche, the school has never repeated an art style any of the eight years.
“This year, we did monochromatic art,” said LaRoche, when talking about the seventh-grade style. “So, the idea is you work with a hue or a color, and then play with that color by either adding white or black to create different shades and tints.”
The eighth graders used watercolor for their pieces, according to LaRoche. “In general, I always try to make sure that there is some different art form, which is pretty awesome when we look back at all of the things we’ve done.”
LaRoche added that project-based learning is important for a student’s growth, and emphasized how several students are able to unpack the nuances of these articles of human rights just by studying and creating the art.
“They have rich conversations with each other as they are working on the art,” said LaRoche. “A lot of my interest is in amplifying student voice, and having our students be full members of our community, and they really appreciate that they’ve been asked to do this.”
Amherst Media has also been integral partners on this project, and the Jones Library is normally where the art is exhibited. Due to COVID-19 however, the art is currently on display on the Jones Library website and will be available through January. The 2020 art was also displayed virtually due to the pandemic.
To commemorate the U.N.’s Human Rights Day, the Amherst chapter of Amnesty International hosted an event at the Jones Library on Dec. 11. The event showcased select pieces of student art and featured guest speakers addressing human rights issues.
“That’s the other thing, is students learn about all the different organizations that are available to them that they can connect to in the community,” said LaRoche.
People can view the art pieces through this link: http://www.joneslibrary.org/humanrightsartexhibit.