Educators’ perspectives on global education

So I tend to use the term global learning at work, as I like the emphasis on the process of learning. I see global learning as a pedagogical response to global issues, where the process or the journey of learning is emphasised. I think, in centralising the learning aspect, global learning can be applicable to all subjects and all disciplines where students can have their own unique learning experience, but making it relevant to global issues and the wider global concerns that we have. I also think that the emphasis on learning challenges us, as educators, to approach education in a creative, stimulating, critical and reflective way.

So I often try to get students to consider alternative perspectives to their own to make sure that the judgments that they’re reaching…- maybe when looking for solutions to a global issue, that the ideas they come up with, will take into account multiple views, and not just the normative or the generally accepted perspective on the issue at hand. I think, in this sense, global learning allows for a greater room for variety, and to explore different views and different realities and different perspectives, and can therefore be a more inclusive approach to education.

So for me, it doesn’t teach specific values, but instead encourages learners to establish their own opinions and to find a moral position themselves where they are motivated to do something on their own initiative. The term I would use is global learning. And that has come at the second half of my career, as I began in the ’90s, where I was very involved in development education. And as things have progressed, global learning, to me, is an all-encompassing term that covers the curriculum and all aspects of the curriculum, but the incidental curriculum and learning opportunities to both formal and informal.

Global learning sometimes can be misunderstood due to the word “global,” because I believe that it actually is all-encompassing with local, national, and global aspects. And it begins, for very young children particularly, with a very strong connection to their local, and with that connection can then become the ability to engage with national and global issues. I used to word global citizenship education, as in it’s the term that is used most frequently and broadly in South Korea. But when it comes to the meaning of it, though, I think it is quite hard to describe what it means, even though I’ve been implementing many various activities in the name of GCE.

So when I promote GCE, I always say I aim to encourage my pupils to think critically with different views, and motivate them participate in making positive changes to the school, to their local community, or sometimes to the world. The term that I use to refer to global education– my preferred term– is global citizenship education as a field of study, because I think the whole purpose of the field is to gain a better understanding of the world that we live in and our place in it. I think it’s a participatory learning experience, and I think that the word “citizenship” means that we all have a stake.

And I think global is an incredibly important component to the field, because we’re all in it together, one world, one earth, and I think we need to explore the inequalities and complexities in the world around us.