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Tuesday 25 March 2014

Education for global citizenship



Why should global citizenship be taught in schools?
Global citizenship brings together education for citizenship, international education and sustainable development education and recognises the common outcomes and principles of these three areas.
Making connections between them better equips learners with skills, knowledge, values and attitudes required to understand and address complex global issues which often transcend individual disciplines.
Many would disagree. For instance, in what way is global citizenship embedded in mathematics given that mathematics is the most abstract of disciplines - or should be - and context free? Yet science and technology cannot be mastered without mathematics whilst the energy problem cannot be addressed without science and technology. Forming opinions and group discussions about decision making across the curriculum just will not do.

And why is there no emphasis on history? Are children not to learn the mistakes of the past or how society arrived at this point?

"Developing global citizens can bring together the totality of all that is planned for children and young people in a coherent and meaningful way."

The totality of all that is planned for children has a sinister ring to it, especially when part of the plan is to have a state agent appointed to oversee the wellbeing of every child in Scotland, monitoring and sharing their personal information from brith to eighteen years - and this is to be combined with an education designed to deliberately confuse and manipulate children into a United Nations` one world view. Children are citizens now, not in waiting, we are told. `Let us hear their views.`

But what about children`s democratic right to an education that of necessity must unfold over time and requires a teacher for instruction? Insisting that we must listen to ignorant children now, is an absurdity. Apart from learning that hard work to master a subject is not necessary to form an opinion, what else will children learn that could possibly be useful?

Nothing but group-think. But that seems to be the plan.

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