Discussions

Your Name and Title:  Johann Savalle, General Program Director

School, Library, or Organization Name: ENGL (European Network for Global Learning)

Country from Which You Will Present: France

Language in Which You Will Present: English

Target Audience: School leaders, Teachers, Ed. Program directors, Educators of all sorts, Psychologists, Parents

Short Session Description:  This session will present an approach to educational framework for the classroom, oriented at development of the global mindset through activities and classroom setup that equips children with skills, knowledge and values which are beneficial for successful management of relationships in interconnected, global reality; it offers a wide perspective of human relations and needed knowledge by teaching collaboration models and providing early experience of real life situations through controlled environment reflecting reality.

Full Session Description:

Need for action

Current situation around the world presents us alarming and indicatively similar picture regardless of location and culture we might want to observe. Global crisis has reached countries, systems, homes and lives of nearly every citizen of the world. Wave of crisis has been driven on the strings of interconnection and globalization that has blossomed in the past decade - which practically means there is an existent infrastructure with endless possibilities and naturally built-in system of cooperation – the problem lies in a fact we haven’t exhausted maximum of its benefits  - yet.

It is indicative to observe how economical, political, social systems are collapsing under the pressure of global crisis – yet technology and culture remain untouched and keep their development pace stable regardless of current situation. Nothing can stop innovation and creativity – which is a great parameter to direct us toward a permanent and multilaterally beneficial solution for current lack of sustainability.

In this context, ENGL cooperated with number of partners in order to develop an educational framework, which will allow the transformation the classroom into a incubator for citizen of global interconnected world, able to cope with above mentioned challenges.

Goals

Education and its official systems represent majority of each children’s childhood. This fact can and should be used to maximally increase the global competence of the future generation and its ability to cope with incoming challenges of the global, interconnected world. Properly conducted education which would

a)    Emphasize importance of understanding the globalism as inevitable phenomena,

b)    Create fertile, encouraging grounds for innovation and creativity in minds of today’s children and tomorrow’s stakeholders of society

is a long-term, systematized and natural key to develop awareness, knowledge and skills which will improve lives of youth and generations raised by them.

Therefore, comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach is necessary to revise and rethink current, as well as develop new framework for schools that will cover these two crucial objectives of education.

Such framework needs to be built out of ideas, methodology and approach appropriate for today’s pupil. Relevant and updated information, necessary social skills, global perspective intertwined through all activities and content, emphasis on philanthropic values, are just some of the characteristics necessary for such framework to provide a comprehensive solution through long-term education.  

Objectives

Outcomes of exposure to such framework should be beneficial for the child and for the society as a whole, with a presumption of overall implementation where only by mutual support and interaction stakeholders can sustain a new level of cooperation. Child being thought through this global perspective and socially and emotionally sensible approach should achieve characteristics such as:

a)    Competency for real-life situations

b)    General global awareness and understanding of globalism / globalization

c)     Maximized creativity due to perspective of possibilities and opportunities widened to a global scale

d)    Adopted sustainable, philanthropic values

e)    Balance in setup of personal goals between material and non-material

Presumptions for successful implementation

In order to assure optimal conditions for successful adoption of guidelines of this framework, a child needs to be exposed to an encouraging environment, which will actively reflect and provide ability to exercise thought knowledge and skills:

a)    teacher’s role should be assisting, friendly, and above all active in all exchanges, rather than passive, superior and non-communicative

b)    classroom should strongly practice group-setting, where everyone is equally engaged and given equal opportunities to learn, express and experiment

c)     children need to feel as they are creators of the process of learning and interaction

Highlights

Approach:

cross-curricular, SEL based, adaptive, dynamic, inclusive

Models:

group-based communication and interaction

Tools:

1)    relationship management and self management: role-playing, personal Journal, filming activities

2)    communication: round-tables, workshops, connection games

3)    experiental learning: peer learning, excursions, roles & tasks assigning within the study group, community building

Values: equality, unity, mutual understanding, creativity, empathy, collaboration

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:

http://www.learnglobal.net