LYNN — Carlos Prudencio may be a local student but he has a global view of human rights.
The Lynn English sophomore, along with friends Nyah Lalimarmo, Michelle Nolasco, Jasmine Phok, and Jenny Ly, are fighting to implement a curriculum that teaches students about human rights and values. They started a petition and received almost 350 signatures from students at Lynn English, Lynn Classical, and Lynn Tech.
“I propose that Lynn Public Schools, and any other official that has a say in the curriculum, input lessons of the importance and knowledge of human values that we all have,” Prudencio said in a letter attached to the petition. “Primarily, focusing on the value of respect because I, and many others, have seen there has been an absence of respect in our world.”
In April, Prudencio participated in Educate to Remember, a workshop hosted at his school by the Lynn nonprofit Global Embassy of Activists for Peace. The workshop’s focus on human rights resonated with Prudencio and inspired him to volunteer as a facilitator for the workshop at Lynn Tech the following month.
After his involvement with the workshop, he began to think about how his peers don’t know about basic human rights and values, or they just choose not to respect them. Prudencio, Lalimarmo, Nolasco, and Phok said the added curriculum would focus on respect, love, compassion, acceptance, and equality.
“It’s about people in general learning about their own human rights because when they don’t understand them, they can get taken advantage of,” said Lalimarmo. “I used to live in the Philippines and in elementary school I had a class called ‘good manners and right conduct,’ where they would teach us about respect and working hard. If this new curriculum were to be implemented into our school system, I would see it kind of being similar to that.”
Each of the students have their own goals when it comes to spreading the knowledge of basic human rights and values. Nolasco said she thinks it is important to focus on respect and Phok said she wants people to take equality more seriously.
“I would like to see people treating gay and transgender people better because I don’t understand why people have a problem with them,” said Phok. “They are nothing but lovable people and there is nothing wrong with them for being themselves and being who they truly feel like they are.”
The group of determined students sent their letter and petition signatures to Superintendent Patrick Tutwiler’s office; the principals of Lynn English, Classical, and Tech; Congressman Seth Moulton’s office; each of the school committee members; state Representatives Donald Wong and Dan Cahill; and state Sen. Brendan Crighton.
“I was impressed by the work done by these students to encourage human rights and values in our schools,” said school committee member Michael Satterwhite. “This push for change to our curriculum inside our classrooms goes well with the changes we are bringing in our first ever School Committee Protocol and SMART Goals, which will roll out for the committee and district wide through our administration in the next couple weeks. All students are our priority in Lynn Public Schools.”
Prudencio and crew received responses from Moulton, Crighton, Satterwhite and school committee member Jared Nicholson. Each official expressed interest in learning more about the group’s initiative and finding ways to implement into the school system.
“I think it’s great they’re taking the initiative and I’m excited to learn more about their goals and their vision, so I’m hoping we can work together on it more,” said Nicholson. “The next step is getting people together to understand, more specifically, what the options are in terms of ways to implement this.”
If all is a go, the group said they hope this new curriculum could begin at the kindergarten level. They are in talks with the school committee and are hopeful in setting up meetings to discuss their vision.
“Values are the foundation of who we are and they, along with human rights, should be taught from the moment a student takes their first steps into a classroom until they walk across the stage,” said Prudencio. “If I teach a little kid to respect another kid, whether they are a different skin color or religion, they will take that knowledge and keep it for the rest of their life.”
