Developing global citizens with curriculum for excellence

Curriculum for excellence introduced into schools by the Scottish Government aims to provide children with the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes required to live and work in a global society. They claim that this involves a different approach to education. This approach turns out to be less about subject matter and more about generating emotions of caring for and perceiving an interconnected world.

The 21st century has presented us with new opportunities and challenges and requires a different approach to education. In our fast-changing world, it is necessary for children and young people to acquire the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to adapt and to thrive. Their education should prepare them for living and working in a global society. The big issues affecting our planet, such as climate change and global poverty, require an innovative generation that knows how to find solutions. Our democratic societies need creative people who recognise the importance and value of participation and making their voices heard. The injustice and inequalities in society require people who care about human rights and who recognise that our lives are linked together in our increasingly interdependent and globalised world. 

 http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/DevelopingGlobalCitizens_tcm4-628187.pdf

Our global leaders have left the next generation with an awful mess then, have they not? So much for their advice !

Julie Andrzejewski and John Alessio presented some of their ideas about the problems facing education for global citizenship in 1999: (before global warming was debunked)

It is widely acknowledged that education rarely challenges the prevailing paradigms and interests of national governments, wealthy elites, or dominant groups, whatever the economic or political system.

There is no indication in the Scottish Government document that national governments, wealthy elites, or dominant groups and their role in world affairs will be covered in Curriculum for Excellence. Meanwhile pupils are encouraged to be concerned about an impending global catastrophe, participate in group discussions and make their voices heard - and this is democracy. Well no ! Not if their education withholds the knowledge base with which to come to an understanding of global affairs that must include the role of the elites.

Julie Andrzejewski and John Alessio cover some of the major catastrophes in their article:

As the millennium nears, people all over the world are struggling with problems of a magnitude no other generation has faced. Even in the most affluent nations, millions of people suffer from hunger, homelessness, and unattended health problems. Wars, civil conflicts and invasions take the lives of millions more. .. Human projects continue to despoil the land, water and air. For example, millions of tons of hazardous waste generated by industrial countries are exported to non-industrialized areas of the world (Sachs, 1995, p.7). Over three billion pounds of pesticides a year are used globally causing "human poisonings, harm to fish and wildlife, livestock losses, groundwater contamination, destruction of natural vegetation, and more pests resistant to pesticides" (Jacobson et al, 1991, p. 45). Deforestation, soil erosion, destruction of habitat, extinction of species, depletion of aquifers are but a few of the many attacks on our planet. 

While natural resources are stripped from the earth, new "species" are genetically engineered by corporations for profitability and monopolized through complex international patent laws with few constraints for releasing them into the environment. Ancient knowledge of plants and animals, and even human genetic material, are stolen from indigenous peoples and used to generate wealth for a few while the cultures which generated the knowledge are decimated (Shiva, 1997). As these examples demonstrate, human rights and environmental issues are clearly intertwined. 

http://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/monographs/glomono.html#Education 

It should be noted that the ordinary citizen played no part in the decisions that have infected the globe. The range of problems are so diverse that they must require different specialisms in order to investigate them if there are to be solutions - not a mindless concern across the curriculum that will leave children vulnerable to manipulation by authorities. It is clear where the thrust for global citizenship comes from:

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)  This is a final, advanced version of a chapter of Agenda 21, as adopted by the Plenary in Rio de Janeiro, on June 14, 1992. 

In order to meet the challenges of environment and development, States decided to establish a new global partnership. .. It is recognized that, for the success of this new partnership, it is important to overcome confrontation and to foster a climate of genuine cooperation and solidarity. It is equally important to strengthen national and international policies and multinational cooperation to adapt to the new realities. 

We are told that sustainable development should become a priority item on the agenda which is why children of the world are being indoctrinated in schools as Education for all, another United Nations` document reveals.  How are they to achieve the transformational change in global attitudes they are looking for? They believe that education for global citizenship and a worldwide concern about the planet is a way forward. UN partners include world banks and multi-national corporations, the very organisations which caused the world`s problems.