A Global Education for a Global Future!

What else is social studies?

Social studies is much more than learning about history and geography; it is experiencing change and how it comes about. Social studies is taught from kindergarten through twelfth grade, however it is taught by integrating other subjects and concepts too. “In 1992, the Board of Directors of National Council for the Social Studies, the primary member- ship organization for social studies educators, adopted the following definition: Social studies is the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence. Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics, and natural sciences. The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (p.1). For this project I was given the topic of global education and humanities, which seemed interesting. It is very important for teachers to start developing this pedagogical knowledge within social studies in the primary grades. 

Before I started to research global education and humanities, I had a general idea of what the topic washout, however I never thought about how it could be incorporated into a lesson for grades K-12. To me, global education was learning about the different cultures and locations around the world. I also thought that it was interesting to find out more about each country. When I heard the word humanities, I also thought of culture, therefore I thought that this topic as a whole was about education, culture, and learning about the whole. I remember in middle school there would be a night of when the students and to bring in food from their culture. I brought in pasta, since I am Italian and got to experience many new cultures and food. My school would also had some cultural dances, which was interesting to watch. Many of the dancers were students that went to my school. Everyone loved culture night and learning did take place in an engaging atmosphere.

Global Education and Humanities 

For this project I worked with Ainsley and we decided to present our topic using a new application called, Symbaloo. Symbaloo was very user-friendly and I thought it was very useful because you can put all different types of documents, applications, and websites all on the dashboard that you are working on. Symbaloo made our information very organized, since you can pick a background color for each app you add on it. Although it was frustrating trying to figure out how to share Symbaloo with each other, we thought using multiple cloud computing resources would be helpful to collaborate, such as using Google Apps. Through collaboration in Google documents, Ainsley and I learned about global education and humanities. I personally did not know all the information we found as well as learning how global education and humanities is incorporated within classrooms.  According to the global education website, “Global education promotes positive values and assists students to take responsibility for their actions and to see themselves as global citizens who can contribute to a more peaceful, just and sustainable world.” Global education focuses on human civilization along with teaching students cultural diversity. It is very important to teach students the location of where each region is on a map, therefore they get a visual of where different cultures take place. 

Did you know that humanities are the study of human culture? This could range from traditions, religion, or the history of different cultures. Humanities can deal with five different areas, such as art and music, religion, literature, history, as well as philosophy. According to the article, Global education in the humanities, there are multiple resources that show the importance of working in studying humanities in different countries. This article has pictures to show the students what a place may look like in another region or country. Providing these articles and images will allow students to develop an understanding of humanities. Students can see how others live in different regions or any changes that are made and how it is affecting the world.

Did you know that global education has five perspectives? The five perspectives are the following: interdependence and globalization, identify and cultural diversity, social justice and human rights, peace building and conflict resolution, and sustainable futures. Each perspective is very important to teach and allow students to create a visual. Teaching the  interdependence and globalization perspective will allow students to make connections of how changes do affect the way society is around them. This perspective is a general overview of what global education is and it is important to teach this element first. Teaching globalization as a whole will allow students to get a better understanding of what it is and how different impacts will affect people within that society. Identify and cultural diversity is understanding of a specific culture and being open to the ideas and beliefs of other cultures. Once students understand interdependence and globalization, they will begin to understand the concept of why diversity is so important. In many schools there is cultural diversity and this could even be explained with literature. When I went to the armory for fieldwork, the topic was diversity since in Newburgh there are a variety of cultures. Going to the armory made me realize how important it is to teach children that everyone may have a different culture, but we all should treat people the same and be open to what their culture believes. Not only was I teaching cultural diversity, but I also learned about these cultures with the children as well as seeing how they interpret it and the questions they formulate based on the books I read.  Teaching social justice and human rights will allow students to understand their own rights, responsibilities, equality and discrimination. This perspective is the middle one of global education, which is important for students to realize any actions they take that are poor decisions may lead them into trouble. All citizens should know their rights and what they are entitled to, therefore teaching this in schools will allow students to learn about the rights they have and the impact of equality. The next perspective is peace building and conflict resolution, which is “an understanding of the importance of building and maintaining positive and trusting relationships and ways conflict can be prevented or peacefully resolved” (Global Education, 2012). Peace building and conflict resolution will allow the students to understand peaceful relationships and how conflicts can be prevented around the world by working together and creating peace. The last perspective is sustainable futures, which will allow “an understanding of the ways we can meet our current needs without diminishing the quality of the environment or reducing the capacity of future generations to meet their own needs” (Global Education, 2012). Students will begin to understand global education as a whole and understand that every action or change can lead into a bigger global problem and affect the people around the area. Teachers and students will have “an opportunity to explore important themes such as change, interdependence, identity and diversity, rights and responsibilities, peace building, poverty and wealth, sustainability and global justice” (Global Education, 2012). Teaching these five perspectives are very beneficial for students to learn as well as understanding different cultures, beliefs, rights, peace, and interdependence. 

 When I was researching about global education, I found an image of the five perspectives, which aligned with the building blocks in the New York State Standards (2014). You can see these two diagrams correspond with each other by having five important elements. Teachers begin to teach a lesson with an overview, such as the inquiry arc, which is globalization. Globalization is an overview of diversity, human rights, peace building, and sustainable futures. Comparing these two diagrams made me realize that they go hand in hand and follow the same steps.  If teachers encourage their students to learn about global perspectives, our future learners can take action for the future. Taking actions coincides with the inquiry process steps. According to global education (2012), “It assists students to consider what they have learnt and encourages them to respond, applying their new knowledge and skills. Global Perspectives (2008, p.7) outlines these skills and attitudes to foster action and participation.” The students will be able to identify positive and negative consequences as well as actions. They will begin to develop the strategies to overcome barriers as well as easily identify barriers. Both student and teachers actions can vary by learning more, taking action more, along with sharing more. Teachers and students can learn by reading, viewing and talking to each other about a specific topic on global education. Everyone can act more by educating others, as well as volunteering their time to fundraise to help places around receive global education around the world.
There are five principles of teaching powerful social studies that we need to keep in mind when discussing global education and humanities. For meaningful learning, students can relate global education and humanities to real-life. They can see through videos or images what is going on throughout the world and how it is affecting society. Teachers could implement literature with different cultures throughout the world, as I mentioned earlier. The CELL program at the Newburgh armory concentrates on cultural diversity through literature. Teaching this is value-based because students can compare and contrast the different governmental systems as well as what governments are doing to promote how global education is within their community. Teachers can challenge their students by displaying a map of the world and asking students to come up and identify the region that the students are learning about. This also incorporates geography, which is very important to teach in all grades. For an activity, Ainsley and I thought the students would be active by the teacher implementing the use of artifact bags. This would allow the students to receive artifacts from a specific location.  Teachers need to concede these five principles while teaching because it is important to engage, challenge, integrate, and have the students actively participate in a lesson. In the article, Five standards of Authentic Instruction, Newmann and Wehlge mention, “Students’ work has no impact on others and serves only to certify their level of compliance with the norms of formal schooling. A lesson gains in authenticity the more there is a connection to the larger social context within which students live. Instruction can exhibit some degree of connectedness when (1) students address real-world public problems (for example, clarifying a contemporary issue by applying statistical analysis in a report to the city council on the homeless); or (2) students use personal experiences as a context for applying knowledge (such as using conflict resolution techniques in their own school)”(p.3). Therefore by providing students with real-life examples throughout the world, they can see how it is affecting that specific area as well as trying to relate to what it would be like if they were there.
After researching Ainsely and I agreed that global education and humanities could be appropriate for third, fifth and sixth grade. For upper grades, this could be taught in ninth and tenth grade. All of these grades will teach students about geography and exploring different cultures and beliefs. According to the New York State Standards in kindergarten to fourth grade as well as ninth to twelfth, the teacher would be teaching geographic reasoning, which will allow the students to  “recognize that characteristics (cultural, economics, and physical-environmental) of regions affect the history of communities, civilization, and nations” (p.19). Teaching global education and humanities will allow students to develop the understanding of culture, economics, environmental changes, as well as how it can affect society. Teaching this concept will vary in depth based on the grade level it is taught it. For the primary grades, the teacher can focus on the use of artifact bags and reading books to expose the students to this. For upper grades the teachers can have the students communicate with students their age through the use of Skype. Students can communicate to each other through audio, video, or message. 

For this project we got the opportunity to work with a partner, therefore Ainsely and I set up a Google document to collaborate together to present this information to our peers. Ainsley and I used Symbaloo for our project, which you can see our dashboard above. On the dashboard, you can present information in multiple ways, such as documents, videos, resources, PDF files and much more. For our Symbaloo we put important resources on the top in blue, therefore they were all in the same spot as well as making it clear for everyone to see. Ainsley and I put the New York State common core and standards to the left in white. When you click on the icon, it will bring you to the site that you linked it to.The gray boxes to the right are important resources we made for our presentation, such as a Google document and Google PowerPoint. Using Symbaloo is very helpful because it also has the Google search embedded into the dashboard. Therefore if a user needed more materials when completing and assignment, instead of them opening a new document, they can just type in the search bar. After researching about this topic I got many ideas on how I could implement it into a classroom, as well as the definition of what global education and humanities are. I had an idea, but never put much thought into why it is so important to teach this in younger grades. By starting students off young to develop these thinking skills and concepts about global education and humanities, as they get to their upper grades they will have a better understanding of how to analyze the information they are receiving. I learned that there are many resources out there for teachers to use within their classroom. I never knew there were case studies for upper students, until I was resourcing this topic. There is so much information out there that I never knew about. I truly think this project allowed me to expand my horizons on teaching social studies and why it is important to incorporate social studies as much as possible in a classroom. If teachers do not teach their students global issues, culture, diversity, or history then they would not fully understand what is going on throughout the world today. Teaching this concept to students will allow them to share this experience and information they learned to others leading into the future. 


Thank you for reading,

References

Global Education. (2012). Retrieved April 26, 2015, from http://www.globaleducation.edu.au

Global Education in the Humanities Greetings From The Dean, 1-19. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2015, from http://www.plu.edu/humanities/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2014/08/prism-spring-2013.pdf

Newmann, F. M., & Wehlage, G. G. (n.d.). Five Standards of Authentic Instruction. Retrieved April 26, 2015, from http://www.learner.org/workshops/socialstudies/pdf/session6/6.AuthenticInstruction.pdf

National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: Chapter 2-The Themes of Social Studies. (n.d.). Retrieved April 26, 2015, from http://www.socialstudies.org/standards/strands

New York State K-12 Social Studies Framework. (2014, November). Retrieved April 26, 2015, from https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-k-12-social-studies-framework

Koehler, M. (2015, April 26). Pedagogical Knowledge. Retrieved May 13, 2011, from http://mkoehler.educ.msu.edu/tpack/pedagogical-knowledge-pk/

What Is Social Studies? (n.d.). What Is Social Studies?, 1-3. Retrieved April 26, 2015, from http://www.learner.org/workshops/socialstudies/pdf/session1/1.WhatIsSS.pdf