“She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.” Roald Dahl, Matilda
Thinking globally is as much about access (ie. technology, field experiences) and process (i.e. Paideia, collaborative working groups) as it is about the input (ie. subject areas, standards) and impact (i.e service learning projects, presentations,portfolios).
We can't have one without the other.
As Global Thinkers we have to move away from the literal interpretations of what global is to the more philosophical thoughts about what global provides and how being global shapes and develops a world citizen.
We are at a critical point in our magnet planning and roll-out.
This is our opportunity to think outside the box----way outside the box. Let us not squelch our own creativity by limiting "global" to how every other school expresses global. We have to stand out from the rest because we are The School of Global Studies for our district.
Yes we do have a box (state objectives, curriculum programs and testing) to consider. But let's think globally with our box and then beyond the box.
I was doing some research and came across this amazing piece of literature "Teaching Students to Think Globally" (Hassard, J. Teaching Students to Think Globally. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 37, No. 1, 1997, 24-63). I'm sharing a small portion of this work with you. The article presents many connections to where we are moving with our global way of thinking.
I hope it sparks deeper discussions as we do THE WORK.
Courageously yours,
Dr. N
Hassard, J. Teaching Students to Think Globally. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 37, No. 1, 1997, 24-63.
Global Thinking---A New Learning Paradigm
A paradigm is a model, pattern or example of one's way of perceiving reality. A number of writers have described the importance of paradigms in determining the way we look at and interpret reality (Barker, 1992; Harman, 1970; Kuhn, 1962) Global thinking can be understood, in the context of schooling and learning, if it is viewed as a paradigm shift. The shift is from a traditional view of learning, to one that represents thinking that is synergic and holistic (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The Paradigm Shift from the Traditional (Old) Model to the Global Thinking Model (New)
The Traditional Model | The Global Thinking Model |
• Traditional, mechanized thinking • Individualistic--although students may at times work together in groups, interdependence typically is not a goal. • Dependence--teacher-directed instructional model establishes a dependent social system. • Hierarchical---choice-made-for-you. Rarely do students choose content or methodology for their investigations • Emphasis on literacy: knowing facts, skills, concepts • Emphasis on content; acquiring the right body of knowledge • Learning encourages recall, and is analytical and linear | • Innovative, flexible thinking • Cooperative--students work collaboratively in small teams to think and take action together • Interdependence--a synergic system is established in groups within a classroom, and within global communities of practice. • Right-to-choose---students are involved in choice-making including problem and topic selection, as well as solutions; reflects the action processes of grassroots organizations • A new literacy insofar as "knowledge" relates to human needs, the needs of the environment and the social needs of the earth's population and other living species • Emphasis on anticipation and participation; on inquiry, learning how to learn, and how to ask questions • Learning encourages creative thinking, and is holistic and intuitive |
What is global thinking? I will try to present an answer to the question by examining global thinking from a number of perspectives including science and the social sciences. The paradigm of global thinking is not new. We shall see that global thinking in the context of schools has roots in the work of such psychologists as Dewey, Rogers, Vygotsky, Piaget and von Glasersfeld. Further we can trace roots of global thinking to the ideas of such scientists as Einstein, Carson, Vernadsky, and Margulis. Further we shall see that educators such as Springer (1993) have examined global thinking in the context of schools, and conclude that the global thinking paradigm calls for the reexamination of educational goals and objectives based on honest answers to the question:
"What does it mean to be well educated in a global society?"
Jerome Bruner provides a cautionary note for educators. Bruner believes that education needs to consider aspects of human wisdom and philosophical depth. Recently, he commented on reform projects in the United States and made the point that "What we need is a reform movement with a better sense of where we are going, with deeper convictions about what kind of people we want to be." (Bruner, 1992, p.6). In this sense, Bruner suggests we ought to think about why we have focused on making education a global playing field in which students in one country are pitted against another. He puts it this way:
· "It might even lead us to question why, for example, we have made such an exclusive fetish about improving our record in science and mathematics rather than, say, concentrating our effort as well on teaching our students about the politics and economics of the revolutionary world changes through which we are living, or about why human nature risks its neck in the interest of freedom in Tianenman Square in Peking, or in East Berlin, in Prague, in Bucharest, in Vilnius. I am not against providing the nation with scientifically and mathematically literate workers so that we can outcompete the Japanese or the new Europe in world markets---as if that aim alone could ever inspire either teachers or students (emphasis mine). We forget at our peril that the great leap forward in Eastern Europe and soon, hopefully, in South America and in the Republic of China was led not so much by mathematicians and scientists (although they were there too) but by playwrights, poets, philosophers, and even music teachers. What marks a Nelson Mandela or a Vaclav Havel is human wisdom and philosophical depth." (Bruner, 1992, pp. 5-6)
Learning to Think Globally
Two main concepts underlie the paradigm of global thinking:
• Anticipation
• Participation
Anticipation in learning is the capacity to face new situations. It is the ability to deal with the future, to predict coming events, and understand the consequences of current and future actions. Anticipation also implies "inventing" future scenarios, and developing the philosophy that humankind can influence future events.
Participation, on the other hand, is the complimentary side of anticipation. Students must participate directly in learning. The learning model that underlies global thinking is based on the following constructivist ideas (von Glasersfeld, 1988)
• knowledge is not passively received but actively constructed by the student.
• the function of cognition is adaptive and it organizes the experiential world.
Participation has local and global components. Action locally is based on a view of environmental education which is described as "education for the environment (Figure 4)." In this view students not only become knowledgeable about the environment, but aware of environmental problems, how to solve them, and motivated to work toward their solution (Michel, 1996). The design of learning experiences, described earlier, includes an action-taking component that is fundamental to the idea of participation. The other component of participation is global. The use of telecommunications enables students to extend participation beyond their own communities. Telecommunications sets up cross-cultural partnerships, global communities, and global summits for studying common global concerns. Springer suggests that telecommunications used for dialog with peers on the other side of the globe is based on the work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky. Vygotsky viewed knowledge being constructed in a social context, with student's ideas being influenced by the ideas and interactions with others (Springer, 1993).
The global problems that students explore in environmental education (air pollution, acid rain, solid waste management, water pollution, ozone) have local causes. Because of this, students are involved not only in learning about them, but participating in solutions to them as well. This is accomplished by participating in hands-on activities in which they pose questions, gather and analyze their own data, and take action on their findings.
A quote from the book, No Limits to Learning provides further insight to the concept of participation:
· "Participation in relation to global issues necessarily implies several simultaneous levels. On the one hand, the battleground of global issues is local. It is in the rice fields and irrigation ditches, in the shortages of over-abundance of food, in the school on the corner and the initiation rites to adulthood. It is in the totality of personal and social life-patterns. Thus participation is necessarily anchored in the local setting. Yet it cannot be confined to localities. Preservation of the ecological and cultural heritage of humanity, resolution of energy and food problems, and national and international decisions about other great world issues all necessitate an understanding of the behaviour of large systems whose complexity requires far greater competence than we now possess. The need to develop greater competence and to take new initiatives is pressing. For example, during times of danger or after a natural catastrophe, nearly everyone participates. Can we not learn to participate constructively when animated by a vision of the common good rather than a vision of the common danger?" (Botkin, 1979, p.199)
A Paradigm Shift
Global thinking is a pattern of thinking. It represents a shift in thinking from an old, traditional model to a new, and flexible model (Figure 3). In the old view, thinking was mechanized and individualistic based on an industrial model, whereas global thinking is relativistic, interdependent and cooperative based on an holistic model.
This model of thinking has implications for schools. In the old model, school objectives and curriculum were driven by subject-specific disciplines. Courses and programs were organized to teach students about the subject, e.g. science, history, geography, mathematics. The new model suggests a different way of organizing courses, and experiences. Springer (1993) suggests that:
Global thinking takes direction from societal concerns rather than from the inward structure of traditional education. Global thinking means looking at the process of schooling differently, considering what it means to be well educated in a global society. Global Thinking presents man as a constructivist, a social scientist capable of using a wide range of scientific attitude skills to develop theories for inventing the future and affecting change. Applying the anticipatory/participation model, global thinking facilitates interactions, connections and partnerships that allow students to experience the social nature of knowledge (Springer, p.79).
A number of themes emerge as organizing principles for global thinking. Springer (1993) presents a model of global thinking that emphasizes two themes:
• Interdependence
• Right-to-choose
Springer sees global thinking as a means of helping students accommodate to the rapid globalization of the world by becoming aware of and acting on the themes of interdependence and right-to-choose. Interdependence requires action on the part of the student. Understanding interdependence must go beyond the definition, and be based on real work by the students. Providing experiences in which students learn about interconnections among global problems is essential. Collaborating on cooperative projects with students in other cultures is one example of how to "teach" interdependence.
As Springer points out, "the right-to-choose" metaphor has emerged around the world as people have demanded the right to participate in all aspects of their lives. Of importance here is the fact that grassroots movements have had powerful impacts on how people think about change. As people have realized how powerful their images of reality are, they have demanded the right-to-choose. This notion has a profound affect on the decisions that are made about how and what to teach. Providing students opportunities to enact their ideas to solve problems, indeed to select the problems they wish to investigate, is in sync with global thinking.
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