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Pre-Work Activities
  • What issues do I care about and why?
  • Why in the past have I chosen to participate?
  • What motivates me to make a difference?
  • Do I see myself as an upstander, someone who does not simply stand by in the face of injustice?
The sample activities below help students begin to examine these types of questions--to start to consider the themes of participation and human rights before going on the site.


Pre-work activity idea #1: ROLE MODELS FOR ACTIVISM. (10-15 minutes)
This activity helps students recognize the similarities and connections between their own lives and the lives of upstanders, such as the award winners profiled on this site.
  1. Think/Pair/Share. Have students spend five minutes reflecting in their journals on the following prompt:

      Name one person in your life who has inspired you to reach out and help others. This could be a family member, a friend, a teacher, or someone famous. List some of the qualities that person has that most inspire you.

  2. Have the students share their reflections in pairs or groups of three. Make sure everyone has time to share.

  3. Come back together as a full group. Ask a few volunteers to share their ideas.

  4. Ask the students to privately review the list of qualities. Which of those qualities do you see in yourself, and which of them do you aspire to?"

  5. Give a short demonstration of the website before sending your students online to explore "Be the Change."

Pre-work activity idea #2: IDENTITY CHART FOR AN “ACTIVIST.” (pre-work: 5 minutes -- post-work: 5 minutes)
This is a pre and post-work activity. The purpose of these activities is to help students understand that “human rights activists” are human beings, just like themselves.
  1. Ask students to create an identity chart for the term activist. The chart can include names of activists (MLK, Gandhi, Oprah, etc.), as well as the qualities they think activists embody.

  2. After going through the site, revisit the identity chart and see if the site changed or expanded their ideas of what is an “activist.” We have found that students tend to add characteristics such as “ordinary people,” “not trying to be famous,” “yourself,” etc., to the chart--characteristics that students can relate to and see in themselves.
*You may want to try this activity subsituting the word "activist" with the word "upstander." Is there a difference between an "activist" and an "upstander"? How does an "upstander" differ from a "bystander"?


Pre-work activity idea #3: SEEING YOURSELF AS AN UPSTANDER. (15-20 minutes)
This activity helps students connect to the work of the human rights activists they will be learning about in this site.
  1. Have students spend ten minutes reflecting in their journals on the following prompt:

      Think about a time when you helped someone in need. Why did you do this? What motivated your actions?

  2. Have the students share their reflections in pairs. Make sure each person has time to share.

  3. Come back together as a full group. Ask a few volunteers to share their ideas. You can make a list on the board of common themes shared about the factors that influence activist (or “helping”) behavior. Then students can reflect in writing or through discussion on the question, “What does this list say about human behavior? About civic participation?”

Pre-work activity idea #4: CONSIDERING GANDHI'S QUOTE. (15-20 minutes)
This activity helps students look at the bigger picture of activism and participation, and to consider their views on an individual's power to create change.
  1. Tell students that the title of this website comes from a famous quote by Gandhi, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Have students spend five to ten minutes reflecting in their journals on the following prompts:

    • What do you think this quotation means?
    • Do you agree or disagree with this idea? Why?
    • What changes do you wish to see in the world?
    • Who has the power to make this change happen? Who is responsible for making this change happen?

  2. Have the students share their reflections in small groups. Make sure each person has time to share.
These prompts function as a pre-test in that they gauge students’ ideas about civic agency before they have explored the website. After students have explored, they can return to these questions to see how or if their ideas about civic agency have changed.

Pre-work activity idea #5: FOCUSING ON CHANGE IN YOUR COMMUNITY. (15-20 minutes)
This activity helps students look at their own communities and the issues that need to be faced.
  1. Have students spend five minutes reflecting in their journals on the following prompt:

      If you could change something in your community or in the world, what would it be? Why do you want to change it?

  2. Have the students share their reflections in pairs or groups of three. Make sure everyone has time to share.

  3. Come back together as a full group. Ask a few volunteers to share out to the full group.

  4. Discuss as a class: "Pretend that you decide to take on your issue. What would be challenging? What would be the obstacles? What would be exciting? Who would you look to for support?"

  5. As a post-work activity, after exploring the website, you could have a full group discussion revisiting the questions listed above for each of the human rights activists. Or, students could re-answer their questions for their own issues, and see if any of their assumptions or thoughts have changed.

Pre-work activity idea #6: THINKING ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS.(15 minutes)
This activity provides students the opportunity to think about human rights issues and try to identify their own passions about how they might “be the change” and make a difference in the world.
  1. As a full group, discuss “what makes something a human rights issue,” and then brainstorm a list of human rights issues. Take the time to clarify about specific issues if necessary.

  2. In their journals, students should choose one issue from the list (or a different one that did not come up in the full group discussion) about which they care.

    • Why do they care about this particular issue?
    • Do they have a personal connection to the issue?
    • Where have they seen this issue violated? At their school? In their community? In a different country? On TV?

  3. In pairs, have students share the issue they chose and their answers.

  4. Full group discussion: Have a few people share the issue they chose, and then for each issue, as a full group, brainstorm ideas of actions you might take to bring about change.

Pre-work activity idea #7: LEARNING ABOUT THE REEBOK AWARDS PROGRAM. (45 minutes)
This activity provides context on the five award winners profiled in Be the Change: Upstanders for Human Rights. It also allows students to think more about the process of interviewing award winners.
  1. Have students explore the Reebok Human Rights Foundation website (http://www.reebok.com/humanrights).

  2. Discuss questions:

    • Why do you think someone started this program?
    • Why pick people under 30 years old?
    • Why pick people who are relatively unknown?
    • Why does each activist receive $50,000?

  3. Have students read about 5-10 awardees and pick three they they’d like to interview. Write five questions you would ask that person.

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