Thinking Globally

In all the talk of globalisation, glocalisation and other kinds of 'the world is flat' discussions, not much attention has been lavished on how exactly the younger generations are being educated to deal with this phenomenon. I was wondering how much of the typical school curriculum has been adapted to take this into account, so I took a look around the net.

One of the first resources I bumped into was this one. Pretty fast off the blocks, compared to its competitors, the University of Cambridge International Examinations 'syndicate' (note to self: will cover etymology of the word some other time) has decided to actually run a course on Global Perspectives.

It is a cunning plan, as some British comedy fans might observe. If you read through the prospectus for the course, it is all about exposing students to a wider range of perspectives and sources of knowledge (etc) and then getting them to cobble the stuff together to form a portfolio-based submission and other output. The content is prepared by teachers and students, the themes are provided by CIE. Ho ho... first time I've seen this approach to curriculum design.

Anyway, the sixteen themes are: Belief Systems; Biodiversity and Ecosystem Loss; Climate Change; Conflict and Peace; Disease and Health; Education for All; Employment; Family and Demographic Change; Fuel and Energy; Humans and Other Species; Law and Criminality; Technology and the Economic Divide; Trade and Aid; Tradition, Culture and Language; Urbanisation; and Water.

It's as if a Monty Python cast sat down and decided to be serious for once. I'm not sure why these themes are named the way they are. And from reading the other materials on the website, I'm not sure they're sure either. Which is fine, since the syllabus is supposed to promote active, as opposed to passive, learning. Well, the candidates can start by actively figuring out what they're supposed to do.