Wereldburgerschap

Het tweede jaar op rij dat ik bij het keuzeprogramma mondo op het Ashram College aan internationalisering heb gedaan vanuit eigen opgestarte projecten en het Global Teenager Project met Learning Circles over de rechten van het kind. Op eigen initiatief hebben we contact gehad met een schoolklas in Tsjechië via Skype en een met een schoolklas in Rusland via SMART amp™. En tijdens de Learning Circles met schoolklassen in Nederland en Suriname via een wiki. Het was leuk om een kijkje in de keuken te nemen bij een ander, maar ik ben van plan om dit structureler en meer in het curriculum te stoppen volgend schooljaar. De cherries on top waren het bezoek aan Gymnazium Zikmunda Wintra in Rakovnik, Tsjechië met 8 leerlingen en het bezoek aan Lycée Warocqué in Morlanwelz, België met alle mondo leerlingen.

Aan het begin van het schooljaar heb ik aan alle leerlingen gevraagd wat zij onder mondo oftewel wereldburgerschap verstonden. De leukste, beste en de meest treffende heb ik hieronder verzameld:

• Wereldburgerschap is dat je goed omgaat met de wereld en de mensen om je heen. 

• Wereldburgerschap is dat een mens iets goed doet voor de samenleving en dat hij of zij de wereld een kleinbeetje beter maakt. 

• Wereldburgerschap betekent voor ons goed zijn voor de mensen en dieren om je heen, goed voor de wereld zorgen en niet vervuilen. De wereldburgers die er zijn geweest of bestaan zijn bijv: Ghandi, Mandela, Vrijwilligers,  mensenrechtenactivisten en nog veel meer andere mensen die zich op een positieve manier de aarde hebben geholpen en mensen in ontwikkelingslanden.

• Wereldburgerschap is voor elkaar klaar staan er voor elkaar zijn om een multiculturele samenleving te worden. In deze wereld moeten we er voor elkaar zijn zoals de daklozen eten geven of een rommelig strand opruimen. 

• Wereldburgerschap betekent onder andere dat je iedereen gelijk behandeld en dat je ook interesse toont in andere culturen/samenlevingen, dat je met z'n allen één wereld bent en niet apart van elkaar. Op school hebben we bepaalde vakken waar je meer te weten komt over andere culturen en samenlevingen en omdat je zoveel verschillende kinderen in de klas hebt kan iedereen er wat over vertellen en begrijp je elkaar meer.

Digital Citizenship - conditions may apply

"If the internet has taught us anything, it is that people will sign up to just about anything as long as it is free. And if the price we pay for things we like is loss of privacy, it's a price many many of us are happy to pay." Matt Egan - Macworld, August 2014.

Knowing this I'm concerned about the consequences of the actions online by my students and my own children. They don't really seem to care - they're adolescents - and perhaps shouldn't have to, but due to the circumstances they grow up with, they will have to. They need to know and learn what the consequence of their online behavior can be in order to take action if they want to. That's a decision of their own, but we cannot let them grow up not knowing. And who is or should be the designated person to do that? I thought so ... Teachers and since school is a learning institute, why not learn the new basics and put this in the curriculum? In my opinion digital citizenship should be a mandatory course or subject taught in school.

I've shared with you about the new subject and creating global learners at my school in another blog post. This is sort of part two, but I'm not satisfied with this yet. The world around keeps changing very fast and I (and the students?) need to keep up and share my knowledge with them. My students will learn mainly about the positive things social media can bring, but also about the downside and dangers such as sexting, grooming, identity theft, online harassment, addiction. They need to be aware of things, because I'm also asking to create and use their accounts on multiple social networks such as Twitter, Instagram, Google and Prezi. Whilst asking them to use these online tools for learning, they need to know about the downside of those online tools and their digital footprint ... or better; digital tattoo. Footprints can be removed, but to remove tattoos is very hard. Content that has shared online, will always be there and for certain instates and companies to find.

Conditions may apply, because when using your television, reading a book or calling someone on the telephone using a landline is quite harmless. But now since we're using smartphones and social media, all our online actions are recorded and traced ... and they could bite us in the ass a few years from now. Students need to know and be aware. 'Think again and be prepared' as Jello Biafra use to say.

Movie to watch: 'Terms and Conditions may apply' (2013)
Google Digital Citizenship Course: http://www.google.com/edu/teachers/youtube/curric/

World Citizenship

Since a few years I'm teaching this subject in the second class at my secondary school besides geography and economics. There's no standardized curriculum and there are no basic (stated as mandatory by the government) goals with this elective subject. That means that me and my colleagues can pick whatever we think that'll fit within the region of this world citizenship thing. 

During the Global SEE Summit in Calgary I prepared the questions for the twitter chat with Rafranz Davis and the topic was Global Awareness and I guess that covers in my opinion the new subject I teach: World Citizenship (mondo as it's called at my school in the Netherlands). These were the main questions that we asked during the twitter chat: 

- How can we create lessons that better prepare kids to be globally prepared?

- What do you think is most important to teach concerning world citizenship?

- How do we maintain global awareness in learning?

During this twitter chat we tried to get ourselves and other teachers to think about these questions and come up with some answers. Even for us as teachers we need to be an example for our students and therefore it's almost mandatory that we add some global awareness to the curriculum. Wouldn't you agree? Especially with the state of the world at this moment, such as the airplane with civilians shot from the air above Ukraine, ISIS in Iraq, civil war in Syria, conflict between the Israeli and the Palestine people, Russia and it's foreign policy, Global Warming, Ebola virus in Africa, child and slave labour during sports tournaments such as the Olympics and World Championships, natural disasters in China and so on.
Due to the amount of information and access to this information, students get faced with too many different views. In that case it's importend that a trustworthy and reliable person as the teacher is able to help his students to verify and narrow down these information stream, in order to let the student be able to create an opinion of their own.

Global Awareness: people nowadays need to be aware and know at least something about it, to create an opinion of their own on these matters. Since the internet the world is connected and it's not about our own street, city or community anymore. From this point of view I think that we need to get our students globally connected. I know that I will. Not only during this new subject I teach, but also in my standardized curriculum with geography and economics. I've got a few plans to connect my classroom with school classes in New Brunswick-Canada, Novosibirsk-Russia, Rakovnik-Czech Republic, Orland Park/USA and am trying to connect to Kenya-Africa. With the classes that I teach about global citizenship we'll be joining the Global Teenager Project again and will connect with schools in Surinam, Curaçao and hopefully many more. 

This week I was asked if digital citizenship should be part of this world citizenship. I think yes, and will blog about that later this week. And would like if you shared your opinion as well. 

Getting connected with Rafranz Davis from Texas, US.

Association for Citizenship Teaching (UK): http://www.teachingcitizenship.org.uk

Wereldburgerschap - kennisplatform voor mondiaal onderwijs: http://www.wereldburgerschap.nl

Canon voor wereldburgerschap/Canon for Global Citizenship: http://www.ncdo.nl/artikel/canon-voor-wereldburgerschap (UK & NL)