Transcript “cultivating humanity” in schools

“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?
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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.
How can we recognize
global mindedness?
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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.
A curriculum that fosters
global mindedness
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Is based on PRINCIPLES
Fosters VALUES
Inculcates ATTITUDES
Develops ABILITIES
Encourages PRACTICES
that underlie or facilitate the bridging of
social and cultural differences.
Global minded PRINCIPLES include
the acknowledgment that…
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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…
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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 VALUES
include…
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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 ATTITUDES
include…
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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.
Globalist ABILITIES include…
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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 PRACTICES include:
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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.
A curriculum that fosters
global mindedness
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 reflectionevaluationfurther
action
A curriculum that fosters
global mindedness
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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
A curriculum that fosters
global mindedness
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Stimulates curiosity1.
about the world
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By organizing the
curriculum around
stimulating questions or
themes about real-world
issues and problems.
By encouraging the pursuit
of student’s own inquiry.
In science, social sciences
and mathematics,
literature, language (as
windows to culture).
A curriculum that fosters
global mindedness
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Provides opportunities
for developing cultural
self-confidence
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By a study of the
student’s own language
and literature.
By a study of the
student’s own history and
society
By using the student’s
own cultural knowledge
By studying the above in
a global context.
A curriculum that fosters
global mindedness
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For instance:
Builds awareness  By studying different ways
in which humans have
and respect for
human dignity and expressed themselves in
different situations.
diversity
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By exploring ways in
which humans have
accepted or transcended
the limitations imposed by
their own history,
geography, biology or
culture.
A curriculum that fosters
global mindedness
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Encourages the
exploration of
human universals
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All disciplines afford
opportunities for
exploring the unity
underlying human
diversity.
An globally minded
curriculum is built
around a few of these
opportunities.
A curriculum that fosters
global mindedness
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
What kind of teaching fosters
global mindedness?
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?
TEACHING THAT RECOGNIZES THAT
KNOWLEDGE is not only
 Propositional (justified,
true belief)
 Analytic (“conceptual
molecules”)
 Discursive
BUT ALSO*
 Constructed for human
purposes
 Embodied in artifacts
 Embodied in
performance
*Cf. Allen, Barry Knowledge and Civilization (Westview, Colorado, 2004)
A curriculum that fosters
global mindedness
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)
What kind of teaching fosters
global mindedness?
With regard to knowledge
TEACHING that
 Draws on a balanced selection of local
and global knowledge from the real
world
 Organizes the knowledge around
significant themes and issues
What kind of teaching fosters
global mindedness?
With regard to concepts and understanding
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.
What kind of teaching fosters
global mindedness?
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.
What kind of teaching fosters
global mindedness?
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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
What kind of teaching fosters
global mindedness?
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Passion
Inquiry
Insight
Open-mindedness
Judgement
Creativity
Integrity
Adapted from Sörman and Laurinolli, Dresden, October 2003
What kind of teacher fosters
global mindedness?
“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)