Translating the Colombian Constitution

As my students' primary social studies teacher, I have to teach the topics that the Colombian government requires 5th graders to know. The topics are fairly varied, and I incorporate a heavy dose of "global" issues and ideas, but I also get/have to increasingly add more specific information about Colombia.

At the beginning of the year, we were learning about elections and government, so I learned a great deal about both in Colombia. It was fun to research and to teach. Not many people spend a great deal of time (Warren not included) researching the voting systems of other countries, but I now understand the Colombian system really well because I was able to teach it. Having a background in Colombian elections has helped me to appreciate the current presidential campaigns.

Last week we started discussing human rights. Human rights in Colombia and the world are a serious issue right now, so I'm trying desperately to treat the subject with the seriousness it deserves. As part of my curriculum, the government issued text book includes a long chapter about the human rights the Colombian constitution guarantees. My Spanish is definitely better than it was at the beginning, but I still needed SpanishDict.com to translate a lot of the words! (For example, today I learned the word difundir, which means disseminate.)

I really love the human rights Colombia chose to include in their constitution. The American Bill of Rights, in comparison, is vague, short, and slightly out-dated. (I had to translate around 40 specific rights listed in the constitution of Colombia, but the American Bill of Rights only has 10 amendments!) While our Bill of Rights causes a great deal of controversy because it can be interpreted in many ways, the Colombian constitution keeps it simple and straight-forward. It guarantees things like protection from torture, a right to education, fair treatment of the elderly, a right to a family, the protection of intellectual property, privacy of correspondence, the right to work and have a career, protection from kidnapping, freedom of religion, respect for individuals, their personality, and their development, and protection from human trafficking. Yes, it gets specific, but it also serves as a very real guide for Colombians.

My students had to write journals last week describing what they thought every person in the world should and what the government was responsible for. Because the Colombian constitution is so specific, we are now able to compare their journals to the law of their own country. Many of them wrote that the government should provide housing, which surprised me, but the Colombian constitution does actually state that a fundamental human right is to have a home in good condition.

Perhaps my favorite part of this unit, though, is not the constitution itself, but what it represents to my students. Although I know human rights in Colombia improve every hour of every day, the American government still refuses to a trade agreement with Colombia because of human rights violations. I have my disagreements with the USA, but I understand that human rights are a critical issue in this country. The reason I like teaching my students about the human rights their constitution guarantees is because the Colombian government has outlined such a clear goal. The human rights they have guaranteed are concrete and noble, and the government and the country can look to their own constitution as an example of the perfect society. No offense to the founding fathers, because I really do have great respect for them, but wouldn't it be nice if the American constitution was so specific that we could look to it for a model of what our country should be instead of arguing about what "Freedom of the Press" really means?

Just a thought. Good night.

p.s. In fairness, the current Constitution of Colombia was written in 1991, but the current American Bill of Rights was written in 1789. The founding fathers couldn't predict everything their constitution and Bill of Rights would face, so they made it vague on purpose so it would be open to interpretation. I just like how clear the Colombians made everything. Much easier to teach!