Teacher-Initiated, Student-Centered Global Education in a K to 8 School

Abstract

Despite a growing recognition that established notions of democracy, nationhood, citizenship, and ethnicity are giving way to emerging notions of democratic, multicultural, global citizenship, there are few curricular guidelines to achieve this expectation. This is especially the case at the elementary level where there isn't even a consensus that such an approach is appropriate. Faced with this lack of consensus and the resulting lack of curricular leadership and driven by the need to respond to the needs and interests of their students, elementary teachers, influenced by the particularities of their local circumstances, follow their instincts and rely on each other with respect to how to teach what is variously called global education, global citizenship education, or education from a global perspective. Elementary teachers are reshaping the practice of what is referred to in this paper as global (citizenship) education at the classroom level. While such innovations can frequently lead to creative results, they can also result in highly idiosyncratic interpretations of what constitutes the most effective approach to teaching from a global perspective or what constitutes global citizenship. This paper is a case study of the efforts of the staff of one small-town Ontario elementary school to infuse a global perspective throughout the grades from K to 8 and across the curriculum.

Citizenship education in Canada: ‘Democratic’ engagement with differences, conflicts and equity issues?

“…In one study involving six secondary teachers in the Toronto area, even those who said that global citizenship education was not a priority of other staff or leaders in their school were able to describe creative curricular and cocurricular global citizenship learning activities they had led-addressing issues such as land mines, fair trade in the coffee industry, and the global environmental impact of four wheel drive vehicles (Schweisfurth, 2006, p. 46). Another small study showed how the staff in one small-town Ontario elementary school made infusion of global citizenship education across the curriculum a school-wide priority (O'Sullivan & Vetter, 2007). A large proportion of the visible global citizenship education activity in Canadian schools seems to be focused on cocurricular activities, often emphasizing awareness and charity fundraising campaigns (Bickmore, 2007;Weber, 2012).…”

Complete Issue (Tony DiPetta, guest editor)

“…By way of example, elsewhere I have described in some detail the progressive and exemplary classroom practice of N.C., an elementary school global education practitioner, and her colleagues in a small-town Ontario school (O'Sullivan, in press;O'Sullivan & Vetter, 2007). N.C. and her fellow teachers came to global education in a highly idiosyncratic way.…”

“…Larsen & Faden and Vetter, for example, explicitly assign such a role to teachers, while Pike (1996) does so implicitly. I have done so myself (O'Sullivan, in press;O'Sullivan & Vetter, 2007). In so doing we are building on the work of John Dewey (1938Dewey ( /1997Dewey ( , 1916Dewey ( /2000 and Paulo Freire (1970Freire ( , 1985Freire ( , 1987Freire ( , 1993Freire ( , 1998 Michael O'Sullivan is Assistant Professor at the Brock University and can be reached at mosullivan@brocku.ca mention only those two prominent radical educational reformers.…”