At this early stage in planning for the coming years, it would be useful to explicitly acknowledge the need for human rights education for human rights educators.

Much of the discussion of human rights education seems to implicitly assume that there is a group of human rights educators who know the topic quite completely, and have the task of sharing that knowledge with various groups need or want to learn it. The reality is that, while there is a common core that most of us know, there are also huge variations in how we understand that core, and what we regard as important. If each of us were to be asked to design a short course on human rights for a group in some particular context, we would likely come up with very different designs.

Our understandings of human rights might not be as broadly shared as some of us assume. Thus, there is a need for horizontal teaching/learning, with human rights educators of varying backgrounds and perspectives sharing their views.

The point of such exercises would not be to determine who is correct and who is incorrect in their understandings, but to gain an appreciation of the diversity of understandings. This would help all of us to come to a better appreciation of that diversity, and make us betters teachers/learners of human rights in all contexts.