Thinking About Rights in the Lumber Primes (K/1)

For the past month, the Lumber Primes have been thinking, learning, reading, talking, and creating art focused on the idea of rights.

Before launching this study, we first checked in on the Lumber Primes' understanding of the word rights (after first clarifying that we were not talking about right like your right hand or turning right, or right like making the right choice in a situation). Here are some of their initial thoughts:

Ra   A right means something that you feel. A right is about something you need to be able to do. Like saying, "it's my right."

T  What you are allowed and not allowed to do. You can have the right to do something or not do something.

Ro   Something that you believe you should be able to do.

Ri  Rights means like if you and me were allowed to do something, and you said that somebody else couldn't do it, that wouldn't be fair because it's a right.

E  My mom is a lawyer and sometimes she fights for women's rights. My dad wasn't against women's rights. He was with them, even though he's a boy. He wanted to fight for women's rights, too.

L  Rights is something you need to do to help yourself. I also know that "equal rights" is a saying.

I  You have the right to agree or disagree with what people are saying.

D  The meaning is like, Black people have the right to have the same things as white people.

A  Rights means somebody has the right to do what they want to do.

The following day, we asked students to help create a list of rights. We talked about how a right is different from just having what you need to survive, it's about what you should have and be able to do in order to have a good life. We also talked about how a right is different than just something that you want (like eating candy).

Next, we revisited the idea of rights using a process called Think and Paint. We divided the students into four small groups, one for each subset of rights. Children who felt strongly chose which idea they wanted to paint about; other students said that a teacher could pick for them. During our small group meetings we talked more in depth about each right, why the children felt it was a right, and how they might represent the idea of that right in a painting. Children shared their initial plans, drew outlines using permanent marker, and then added paint to their drawings.

Below are some ideas shared during our think and paint process:

RF  I think everyone has the right to warm clothes on a cold day. Maybe I could draw someone handing someone a warm sweater, because people have the right to survive. I’m feeling inspired by Sankara, I’m going to draw someone having a house because shelter keeps you warm too.

Ri  I’m going to draw someone moving into a house because they finally got enough money from someone to buy a house.

S I wanna draw two people building someone a house, because people have the right to have a place to live… This is Grasshopper Hill and these people are finding a house near the Center School. The baby in my picture is nice and warm because she's by the fire.

H People have the right to no war. My idea is people near a house in a war being sad… I’m using all the colors to cover the marker. I’m making it look like he lost an arm in the war. 

L  I know my idea already. I am going to draw people having a war, then I’m going to draw a big X over it because war isn’t good and people have the right to peace. 

Ro  I said people have the right to feel like they belong, but I also want to draw people having peace, but I don’t know what I really want to draw…I need more think time… I’m drawing people having a war and people holding signs to day stop fighting.

F  People have the right to no war, that’s what I want to draw. I’m going to draw a war, and people being sad in a war… In the background I put a bunch of broken hearts because I learned how to make hearts when I made Owen’s name tag thing the other day. I just made zig zags [on the hearts] to make them broken.

Is  People have the right to food and water because if they didn't have it they would die. I'm thinking about how I can paint a river and make the water look really clean.

T   It would not be a good life if you were feeling hungry all the time. I'm going to make someone with chicken soup and the person is really smiling because they haven't had food in a long time.

Ru  Some people are poor and if you don't have a place to live you can't carry enough food and water around with you all the time and you don't have a place to put it. I'm thinking about farmers markets and a basket of vegetables and an apple. I like Tuli's idea about soup, maybe I will put soup, too.

M   I made someone eating and there's apples and peppers in a bowl.

Ra  It's good to be loved and you have to be cared for. I'm going to draw someone getting their hair braided and other people holding hands.

D  I'm going to draw me in a place where I feel like I belong: any forest.

E  I painted a bit of fog over this part of my drawing to show the story of love of people who passed away.

As we continue to explore the idea of rights with the Lumber Primes, we want to make sure that we are always highlighting the many ways that people resist things like racism and oppression, and the strategies that people use when fighting for their rights. The book Sometimes People March features strategies like protesting, marching, boycotting, giving speeches, writing letters, creating music and other forms of art. 

After reading about the friendship between Martin Luther King, Jr and Mahalia Jackson in the book Martin and Mahalia: His Words, Her Song, we talked a bit about the power of music, and how singing has always been a part of resistance when people aren't being treated fairly or are fighting for their rights. In addition to her presence at many of MLK's speeches and actions, when he was feeling discouraged, MLK would call Mahalia and she would sing to him over the phone to lift his spirits. One afternoon inside, the Lumber Primes spent time drawing and painting while listening to a playlist of Mahalia Jackson's songs, including her version of We Shall Overcome, How I Got Over, and Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho. The children's artwork featured people singing, marching and protesting, peaceful and loving cities, and snippets of song lyrics.

In recent weeks we have sought out more books to help expand the Lumber Primes' list of rights that people should have, focusing on rights that the children did not include when brainstorming their initial list. For this first round of books about rights, we selected stories covering a wide range of topics that were either about children, or written from a child's perspective.

Please take a few minutes to check out this video of the Lumber Primes thinking and learning about rights!