Download - CULTIVATING HUMANITY IN SCHOOLS Promoting global mindedness as good teaching practice

“CULTIVATING HUMANITY” IN SCHOOLS

Promoting global mindedness

as good teaching practice

GLOBAL MINDEDNESS A NEED OF OUR TIMES

In today’s highly interdependent world, individuals and nations can no longer resolve many of their problems by themselves. We need one another. We must therefore develop a sense of universal responsibility… It is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to tend to the environment in which we all live.

(The Dalai Lama)

How can we recognize global mindedness?

GLOBAL MINDEDNESS IS “CAUGHT, NOT TAUGHT” …

BY BUILDING AN ETHOS THAT ENCOURAGES…

CERTAIN HABITS OF THE MIND AND THE HEART, AND…

CERTAIN ACTIONS AND PRACTICES.

Global mindedness in the school is like the flavours in food:

- There are many flavours- It is distinguished more by its

absence than by its presence. Academic programs may not entirely

lack the flavours of globalism… But there may be gaps between a

school's public commitments and its actual practices.

How can we recognize global mindedness?

A curriculum that fosters global mindedness

Is based on PRINCIPLES Fosters VALUES Inculcates ATTITUDES Develops ABILITIES Encourages PRACTICES

that underlie or facilitate the bridging of social and cultural differences.

Human culture and knowledge exhibit DIVERSITY that is valuable both

intrinsically for its own sake, as well as

instrumentally as a resource for the survival and flourishing of humanity.

Global minded PRINCIPLES include the acknowledgment

that…

Human individuals and groups share common characteristics that are concealed by the outer “clothing” of cultural diversity. This principle constitutes a basis for…

exploring human universals treating others as we ourselves would

wish to be treated treating all human beings as equal in

worth, dignity and potential.

Global minded PRINCIPLES include the acknowledgment

that…

HUMAN EQUALITY – the recognition that ALL human beings are EQUALLY entitled to DIGNITY, FREEDOM and JUSTICE, even when their beliefs, actions and behaviours are not.

COMPASSION for those in a more difficult situation than our own, as a motive for mitigating their suffering.

RESPECT for people who are DIFFERENT from us (belong to an identifiably different social or cultural group).

Global minded VALUES include…

Friendly and respectful curiosity about other human beings who are DIFFERENT from ourselves

Empathy for people in other situations Commitment to social justice, non-

violence and peace Willingness to collaborate with others.

Global minded ATTITUDES include…

Seeking patterns, links and relationships across different perspectives.

Exploring critically but sympathetically ideas that we do not share

Comparing and contrasting across human differences, and seeking human universals

Respecting and treating with dignity people who may be different from us in culture, beliefs and behaviour.

Building understanding across cultural differences.

Globalist ABILITIES include…

Globalist PRACTICES include:

Communication and dialogue with others who are different

Collaborating across human differences towards common goals

Resolving conflicts and building reconciliation and peace

Serving the community (adding to its long term social capital), whether local or global.

Provides a BALANCE between local and global knowledge different ways of knowing, judging

and understanding (scientific, mathematical, interpretative, ethical and aesthetic)

Feeling, knowing, doing and being Action

reflectionevaluationfurther action


Stimulates curiosity about the world

Provides opportunities for developing cultural self-confidence

Builds awareness and respect for human dignity and diversity

Encourages the exploration of human universals


Stimulates curiosity about the world

1. By organizing the curriculum around stimulating questions or themes about real-world issues and problems.

2. By encouraging the pursuit of student’s own inquiry.

3. In science, social sciences and mathematics, literature, language (as windows to culture).


Provides opportunities for developing cultural self-confidence

1. By a study of the student’s own language and literature.

2. By a study of the student’s own history and society

3. By using the student’s own cultural knowledge

4. By studying the above in a global context.


Builds awareness and respect for human dignity and diversity

For instance: By studying different

ways in which humans have expressed themselves in different situations.

By exploring ways in which humans have accepted or transcended the limitations imposed by their own history, geography, biology or culture.


Encourages the exploration of human universals

1. All disciplines afford opportunities for exploring the unity underlying human diversity.

2. An globally minded curriculum is built around a few of these opportunities.


Will include throughout the school Opportunities to reflect about the

nature of learning Activities of trans-disciplinary

inquiry Community service activities that

create opportunities for experiential learning


This process is about planting seeds —as in authentic education—and there is no way of knowing when, where or how those seeds will flower. Palmer, Parker The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life 1998

What kind of teaching fosters global mindedness?


KNOWLEDGE is not only

Propositional (justified, true belief)

Analytic (“conceptual molecules”)

Discursive

BUT ALSO* Constructed for

human purposes Embodied in artifacts Embodied in

performance

TEACHING THAT RECOGNIZES THAT

*Cf. Allen, Barry Knowledge and Civilization (Westview, Colorado, 2004)

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any of them.

(M. K. Gandhi)


TEACHING that Draws on a balanced selection of

local and global knowledge from the real world

Organizes the knowledge around significant themes and issues

With regard to knowledge


TEACHING that helps students to Choose appropriate concepts, metaphors and

theories to BUILD understanding APPLY and TEST understanding on a real

problem CORRECT and IMPROVE ON current

understanding through reflective evaluation of the results of testing

FLEXIBLY apply RELEVANT knowledge and skills to make sense of new situations.

DEMONSTRATE the understanding through performances and artifacts.

With regard to concepts and understanding


Teaching that creates a range of activities

allowing learners scope for individual as well as collaborative inquiry

that allows some scope for inquiry that is trans-disciplinary, to enable students to experience concurrency of learning and the different perspectives of each discipline.


Teaching that provides opportunities for reflection on the learning process

To evaluate one’s learning To discuss one’s learning with

other learners To collaborate in build learning

communities within the school


Passion Inquiry Insight Open-mindedness Judgement Creativity Integrity

Adapted from Sörman and Laurinolli, Dresden, October 2003


“The teacher is not a machine for giving lectures, but is a resource to the students - one who inspires them to investigate and question, one who guides them and one who is able to sustain their enthusiasm for study and research. The real teacher is himself a life-long student."

(Reşit Galip, Minister of Education, 1933, in address at Istanbul University)

What kind of teacher fosters global mindedness?

Download - CULTIVATING HUMANITY IN SCHOOLS Promoting global mindedness as good teaching practice

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