Global curriculum: Why it is needed and ways to implement it

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Global curriculum Why it is needed and ways to
implement it

• By Athena Smith, Ph.D.
• Hillsborough Community College, Tampa

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What is a global curriculum?

• Two meanings
• 1.National curriculums adopt a global dimension
• 2. Common courses, with common content taught in
  various countries.

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Why do we need a global curriculum?

• To become world citizens.
• As world citizens, we promote sustainability,
  democracy and security.
• Also, we improve by learning through watching
  others

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World citizenship depends on

• Alleviation of cultural conflict
• Prevention of Anti- sentiments
• Continuous discussion of globalization

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The Pew Global Attitudes Project(survey of
14,000 people in 13 nations, IHT, 6/29/06)
showed

• Westerners and Muslims around the world have
  radically different views of world events, and
  each group tends to view the other as violent,
  intolerant, and lacking respect for women
• Majorities in every country except Pakistan
  expressed pessimism about Muslim-Western
  relations (Germany 70, France 66, Turkey 64,
  Spain and Britain 61 and Egypt 58.)

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Today it is far easier to achieve the bridging of
the gap

• Internet
• Immigration
• International sports
• International art
• Travel

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One Laptop per Child

• You buy one for 400, another one is sent to
  Africa
• Participating countries
• Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Colombia, Haiti,
  Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Afghanistan, Cambodia,
  Mongolia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue,
  Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu

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First we have to overcome the who cares attitude

• Interdependence examples
• Environmental degradation
• The story of a pencil
• EU-US trade
• Security concerns

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A global curriculum will alleviate cultural
conflict by

• Promoting formal education
• Teaching global values and behaviors

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Education with a global perspective will enhance
democracy

• If we cannot say that a "high" level of
  education is a sufficient condition
• for democracy, the available evidence does
  suggest that it comes close to being necessary
  condition. (Seymour Martin Lipset)

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Cultural conflicts spring from

• Stereotyping
• Different assumptions about the nature and
  purpose of the world

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The anti-sentiments evolve around

• Civilization
• Religion
• Denomination within religion
• Sex
• Age
• Country of origin
• Region within country of origin
• You name it!

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How we stereotype Arabs

• The three B syndrome bombers, belly dancers, or
  billionaires.
• 21 major movies in the last ten years show our
  military killing Arabs. (Iron Eagle, Death Before
  Dishonor, Navy SEALs, Patriot Games, the American
  President, Delta Force 3, Executive Decision).

• Russell Baker "Arabs are the last people except
  Episcopalians whom Hollywood feels free to offend
  en masse."

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How Indonesians stereotype the Chinese

• Chinese are rich
• Chinese keep to themselves
• Chinese are arrogant
• Chinese think that money can buy anything

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A global curriculum will teach different world
perspectives

• We have entered a new global order based on
  cultural comparative advantage.
• Japanese social discipline.
• Indian intellectual rigor
• Korean loyalty to superiors
• Cantonese entrepreneurship
• Indian traffic

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From Kindergarten we can teach social development

• Use pictures
• to show peoples happiness and sorrow-
• To show common needs and practices
• To exchange travel experiences

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Communication and language

• Discuss stories with common justice messages
  (Indian Fairy Tales )
• Different religions
• Different foods
• Different family settings
• Different customs and art (dances, theatre,
  music, humor)

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Mathematics

• Counting games using objects from around the
  world (coins, flags, cheeses, musical instruments)

• photographs and drawings show how
• cultures use numbers and shapes Chinese
  tangrams

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International collaboration

• Pupils from Dorton House in Kent, and Milton
  Margai School for the blind in war-torn Freetown,
  Sierra Leone, have visited each other and worked
  together on disability rights and conflict
  resolution projects.

• Here is the story from BBC NEWS

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This year's collaborations

• Hove Park school has organized cookery visits to
  Thailand
• Drama collaborations in India

• A web project on geography, history and cookery
  in Ghana
• Hove Park has also hosted visits from China,
  Japan and Russia and is leading attempts to set
  up national links with South Korea.

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Global engineering ethics

• An international partnership network with
  Virginia Tech has included Politecnico di Milano
  in Italy and Jadavpur University in India. North
  Carolina AT State University and the University
  of Illinois at Chicago will test the final
  courses that are developed.

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In high school and college, a global curriculum
should include

• Social sciences
• Economics
• International Relations/History
• Literature
• Science

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Common courses in International Relations

• Developmental theories (modernization and
  dependency)
• Human Development Reports (UNDP)
• Political tensions have contributed to
  underdevelopment and radicalism.

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Transparency examples

• Legislators post expenditures online
• Corruption distorts public spending in 3 ways
  from shaping the official priorities of
  government, by deflecting allocated resources
  away from their original purpose, and by
  undermining the tax base of government.

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Bribes

• Countries whose firms are least prepared to pay
  bribes
• Switzerland
• Sweden
• Australia
• Austria
• Canada

• Countries whose firms are most prepared to pay
  bribes
• India
• China
• Russia
• Turkey
• Taiwan

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Projects from recent events

• Gibraltar's referendum
• UAE names eight women to advisory council
• History of Terrorism

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Common courses in economics

• Economic models (US, Sweden, Japan, Cuba)
• FRONTLINE sick around the world PBS

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Need for world history

• 1. Help students to understand that their country
  never existed in a vacuum and that events
  occurring within their borders affect other
  peoples.
• 2. Help students to recognize that historical
  interpretations are colored by national
  interests.

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Re-writing texts

• Cyprus history book rewrites spark outcry
• To avoid 'us vs. them' in Balkans, rewrite
  history

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Common courses in world literature

• Readings from the
• developed and the
• developing world authors
• demonstrate common
• trends in humanity
• amongst cultures
• Ibaa Ismail

• Learn, our little white, black, red, and yellow
  ethnic buds,
• how to emerge from rocks,
• and flourish for life, not for destruction, not
  for wars,
• but to spread your petals peacefully and say
  your prayers,
• the way you like it, in any religion you believe
  in.

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Computer science/math/science

• This knowledge is vital for access to the global
  e-community and for efficient competitiveness in
  a globalized economy.

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From The Global Curriculumhttp//www.i-learnt.c
om/Paradigm_Global_Curriculum.html
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Performance on the science scale of PISA 2007

• Finland
• Canada
• Japan
• New Zealand
• Australia
• Netherlands
• Korea
• Germany
• UK
• Czech Republic

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Performance on the mathematics scale in PISA

• Finland
• Korea
• Netherlands
• Switzerland
• Canada
• Japan
• New Zealand
• Belgium
• Australia
• Denmark

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In Finland we observed that the results were
characterized by high homogeneity

• Differences due to region, socioeconomic
  background or gender were rather small.
• Finns tend to achieve very well in international
  comparisons of literacy

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Possible set-ups for a global classroom among
countries

• Synchronous distance learning
• Asynchronous distance learning
• Correspondence courses
• Exchange programs