Global Issues: Who are the movers and shakers?

Clayton Lewis

Madrid, 2007

    

Basic Books

New York, 2002

Sharing our Planet: Issues involving the global commons

• Global warming• Biodiversity and ecosystem losses• Fisheries depletion• Deforestation • Water deficits• Maritime safety and pollution

Sharing our humanity: Issues whose size and urgency requires a global commitment• Massive step-up in the fight against poverty • Peace-keeping, conflict prevention, combating terrorism• Education for all• Global infectious diseases • Digital divide• Natural disaster prevention and mitigation

Sharing our rulebook: Issues needing a global regulatory approach• Reinventing taxation for the 21st century• Biotechnology rules• Global financial architecture• Illegal drugs• Trade, investment and competition rules• Intellectual property rights• E-commerce rules• International labor and migration rules

Rischard: 20 years, 20 problems

What is a global issue?

A problem that – if not resolved – will have severe, adverse effects upon

humanity,

and that will not be resolved without an unprecedented level of global

cooperation.

Type A

Those persons whose circumstances or disposition make them unaware that such issues have global implications.

Type B

Those persons who are aware that such issues have global implications, but who believe that they are part of the normal flow of history, and that humanity will or will not adapt.

Type C

Those persons who are aware of such global issues, and who believe that these issues demand our immediate attention and focused action.

Type A: Those persons whose circumstances or disposition make them unaware that such issues have global implications.

Type B: Those persons who are aware that such issues have global implications, but who believe that they are part of the normal flow of history, and that humanity will or will not adapt naturally.

Type C: Those persons who are aware of such global issues, and who believe that these issues demand our immediate attention and focused action.

ECIS Mission Statement

“The European Council of International Schools is a collaborative network promoting the ideals and best practice of international education. ECIS leads in addressing significant current and future educational and global issues in support of its members in Europe and worldwide.”

April 2007

CIS Core Standards forAccreditation (draft)

“The school shall provide opportunities for learners to understand current issues of global significance relating to geopolitics, the environment, health, trade, sustainable development and human rights.”

April 2007

Is it important for the students in your school to engage with these

issues?

School Mission Statements

• “… students are educated to be responsible and caring members of the world community … to respond compassionately to human needs.”

• “… fosters active citizenship in a changing world.”

• “… creates within students a spirit of responsibility for themselves and others in the school environment, our host country ... and the global community …”

• “…to develop life-long learners … who are empowered … to contribute to a changing global society.”

“…our difficulties belong to the future, but our means of solving them, and our politics, belong to the past. Yet, never have there been such massive opportunities for improving the human condition. So it’s not a problem of means or lack of solutions: it’s a problem of methodology and mindset.”

JF Rischard

“…our difficulties belong to the future, but our means of solving them, and our politics, belong to the past. Yet, never have there been such massive opportunities for improving the human condition. So it’s not a problem of means or lack of solutions: it’s a problem of methodology and mindset.”

JF Rischard

…our difficulties belong to the future, but our means of solving them, and our teaching, belong to the past. Yet, never have there been such massive opportunities for improving the human condition. So it’s not a problem of means or lack of solutions: it’s a problem of methodology and mindset.

It’s about the curriculum…content and methodology

• Need for a better understanding about the future

• Need for a new mindset• Need for a broader perspective• Need for new skills

Essential Questions

The starting point, as Grant Wiggins argues, is to "organize courses not around 'answers' but around questions and problems to which 'content' represents answers.“

Coalition of Essential Schools

• What sort of essential questions pertaining to global issues should an 18-year-old

should be able to discuss with clarity and insight?

Examples:

• Are economic growth and environmental preservation compatible?

• How does our sense of identity often lead to conflict?

• Why is globalization controversial?

• How do you account for inequality – locally, nationally, and internationally?

Which of these subjects seem most relevant to these issues:

European HistoryPsychologyEconomics

Environmental Science U.S. History

U.S. Government World History

Comparative Government & PoliticsHuman and Physical Geography

SociologyCultural Anthropology

PhilosophyInternational Relations

A & AS Level Social Science 2006age 16-18

503,291 exams (27% of all A & AS Levels)• Psychology 26%• History 20%• Geography 14%• Business Studies 14%• Sociology 13%• Economics 8%• Political Studies 5%

AP Social Studies 2006age 16-18

895,518 exams (43% of all APs)• U.S. History 35%• U.S. Gov’t & Politics 16%• European History 10%• Psychology 11%• Economics 10%• World History 9%• Environmental Science 5%• Human Geography 2%• Comparative Gov’t & Politics 1%

IB Group 3 2006age 16-18

52,478 exams• History 47%• Economics 16%• Psychology 15%• Business & Management 7%• Geography 6%• IT in a Global Society 4%• Philosophy 3%• Sociology/ Cultural Anthro’y 2%• Islamic History 0.2%

“For both HL and SL courses knowledge beyond 1995 is not required.”

IB History Syllabus

IB 20th Century History SL & HLChoose 3

• Topic 1: Causes, practices and effects of war

• Topic 2: Nationalist and independence movements, decolonization and challenges facing new states

• Topic 3: The rise and rule of single-party states

• Topic 4: Peace and cooperation: international organisations and multiparty states

• Topic 5: The Cold War

• Topic 6: The state and its relationship with religion and with minorities

IB 20th Century History SL & HL

• Topic 2: Nationalist and independence movements, decolonization and challenges facing new states

• Topic 4: Peace and cooperation: international organisations and multiparty states

• Topic 6: The state and its relationship with religion and with minorities

IB 20th Century History SL & HL

• Topic 1: Causes, practices and effects of war

• Topic 3: The rise and rule of single-party states

• Topic 5: The Cold War

IB 20th Century History SL & HLPrescribed subjects (choose 1)

• The USSR under Stalin 1924-1941

• The emergence and development of the People’s Republic of China 1946 to 1964

• The Cold War 1960 to 1979

IB 20th Century History SL & HL

• Assess the social and economic causes of one 20th Century war.

• Analyze the results of the First World War.

• Evaluate the successes and failures of one ruler of a single-party state.

IB History HL 2006

21,231 exams

• History of the Americas 62%

• History of Europe 35%

• History of Asia/Oceania 1.5%

• History of Asia/Middle East 0.7%

• History of Africa 0.5%

IB History HL 2006Europe – 100 years

• Although Germany was to blame for the outbreak of the First World War other countries were equally responsible.” How far do you agree with this statement?

• Why did Germany and her allies lose the First World War?

• Compare and contrast the domestic policies of Hitler and Stalin up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

IB Economics (SL)

• Discuss the view that there is strong justification for government intervention in the market for health care.

• Evaluate the impact of globalization on the economic development of developing countries.

IB Geography (SL)

• “The only effective responses to the problems of acid rain and the depletion of stratospheric ozone are international, and not local or national.” Discuss this statement.

• To what extent are the human responses to one named climatic hazard related to a country’s level of development?

IB Social/Cultural Anthropology (HL)

• What are the mechanisms by which social inequalities are maintained?

• Compare the perception of migrants from the perspective of both the migrants themselves and the members of the society that the migrants settle in.

Prehistory-antiquity

Issues

Future

History

Geography

Economics

SociologyAnthropology

Environmental Science

Contemporary

How it seems:

Mission Statement

A-L,AP, IB

TeachersUniversities

Our Global Reality

Curriculum

How it should be:

Mission

CurriculumOur Global Reality

Teachers

Universities A-L,AP, IB

What’s happening at the universities?

University of Michigan: Social Science Concentration

Courses offered in the program cross theoretical and methodological boundaries that conventionally separate social science disciplines (economics, history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, and geography) by centering on questions or problems that can be pursued through several disciplinary frameworks.

What’s happening at the universities?

University of Wisconsin: Global Commons/Global Environment

Focuses on the understanding and management of

international and trans-boundary environmental resource problems. Courses in this track will examine environmental and resource policies and provide an understanding of various environmental and resource issues.

What’s happening at the universities?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

http://ocw.mit.edu

Cambridge International Exams

“…This syllabus is designed in response to a growing perception that young people in countries across the world face unprecedented challenges in the 21st century.”

IGCSE: Global Perspectives

Cambridge International Exams

“…A prime emphasis will thus be on developing the sorts of skills and dispositions of thinking that active citizens of the future will need.”

IGCSE: Global Perspectives

Tough Choices Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce

Program for International Student Assessment OECD

Five Minds for the Future by Howard Gardner

College Learning for the New Global Century Association of American Colleges and Universities

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

21st Century Learning

Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and

Development

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

“Globalisation and modernisation are creating an increasingly diverse and interconnected world…

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

“…To make sense of and function well in this world, individuals need for example to master changing technologies and to make sense of large amounts of available information…

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

“…They also face collective challenges as societies – such as balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability, and prosperity with social equity.”

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Problem-Solving…to understand problems situated in novel and cross-curricular settings, to identify relevant information or constraints, to represent possible alternatives or solution paths, to develop solution strategies, and to solve problems and communicate the solutions. (OECD, 2004)

“…tomorrow’s generations must develop a networking-oriented mindset if they are going to solve the burning global problems that stare us in the face.”

J.F. Rischard

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.”

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia

New Media Literacies

“When you say ‘collaboration,’ the average forty-five year old thinks they know what you’re talking about—teams sitting down, having a nice conversation with nice objectives and a nice attitude. That’s what collaboration means to most people.”

Google CEO Eric Schmidt

New Media Literacies

Maximizing the Impact: "The Pivotal Role of Technology in a 21st Century Education System"

Becat Review 2005 - Progress of ICT in Education

Digital Natives – Digital Immigrants

Integrating Literacy and Technology into the CurriculumLearning for the 21st Century

How does Technology Influence Student Learning?

21st Century Skills

New Media Literacies

“Schools are currently still training autonomous problem solvers, whereas as students enter the workplace, they are increasingly being asked to work in teams, drawing on different sets of expertise, and collaborating to solve problems.”

New Media Literacies

“Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement. The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking. These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom.”

New Media Literacies

www.global-issues-network.org