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Table of Contents
Lesson 1.1 Change of perspectives
The world is diverse. Even in the way we perceive it. You could even say that there are as many perceptions of the world as there are people on this planet. How we imagine the world and how we interpret these ideas is not only determined by our upbringing and education system, but also by the social norms and values of the part of the world we were born into. Some perceptions are extremely limited and narrow, others are broad, informed and multi-perspective, some are illusions and the product of prejudice and stereotypes, others are utopias, others are closer to reality.
It is also important to be aware of the bigger picture, the background, the context, and the fact that we may only see part of the picture, and it is only by looking at more parts of the picture that we will get to the whole. Finally, it is also important to understand that our interpretation of what we see, look at, hear is something else again.
To make it easier, let's take a look at a couple of illustrative examples.
Imagine you have a glass bowl full of different kinds of fruit in front of you. Next to you, several people are looking at this bowl of fruit, each standing at their own end of the room. Each of you will name a different fruit in the container, depending on the angle from which you are looking at it. For example, you see grapes and pears. The other will see bananas and apples. And yet another, who might be looking at the container from the bottom up, might even see oranges at the bottom of the container. So, each person would describe a different fruit. And each of you would be right. Because all the fruit described is in fact in the container. The problem would arise if you and your neighbours disagreed on the descriptions of the fruit, because you would be so sure of your rightness and your view that there are only grapes and pears in the container and nothing else.
LESSON 1.2 Change of perspectives 2
A similar example is the following figure. On one wall someone would see a rectangle, and on the other wall someone would see a circle. Both are correct: it is true that there is a rectangle on the wall, and it is true that there is a circle on the other wall, but the truth is the object in the middle - namely the cylinder. If we look only at the scene on the wall, we see only a fraction of that reality. A different point of view (perspective) also means a different interpretation (perception).
This is perhaps better explained by the slightly more "down-to-earth" example in the picture below. The first picture would have been the first reaction of most people, who would have been horrified by the crass gesture of the heir to the English throne. At the same time, they would immediately start thinking about who he was giving the middle finger to. Perhaps the annoying journalists and photographers?
How quickly injustice happens is shown by the second picture, which shows the real gesture from a different perspective, with the future king showing number three with his fingers.
A Guardian video from the 1970s, Point of View, also shows how important the angle (or even several angles) from which we observe and judge are for interpreting events:
LESSON 1.3 Diversity of our perspectives
Thus, as we have seen in the previous lessons, it is important to realise that things are not always as they seem or as we are taught to see them. In order to cope with the different interpretations that exist in this world, we often have to "unlearn" what we have already learnt. Our view of the world is often already learned, socially programmed and predictable.
Let's look at how we would describe the picture below.
Author of the photo: Julie GroppWe would venture to say that most in our part of the world would describe the picture something like this:
"A wild boar crosses the road."
But what if we looked at the picture from a non-anthropocentric point of view? Then the description of the picture would read as follows:
"Wild game does not cross the road. The road crosses the forest."
So, when we change perspective, we suddenly see things (and the world) in a completely different light.
And if we map all of the above onto how we see the world and how we talk about it because of our diminished view, we get a story like the one in the little film below. The video How to talk about the world was produced by colleagues from Polish Humanitarian Action (PAH) in Poland and is subtitled in English:
Lesson 2.1 Global learning for the bigger picture 1
Global learning is not just about learning about other interpretations and putting the pieces together, but about lifelong learning and questioning how our daily actions affect the whole. It is a tool to learn what it is like to suddenly see things in a different light, from a different angle, to slowly put together the pieces of a mosaic that reveal a whole picture we may not have known existed. How our little part, in which we move and act, influences the other parts and the bigger picture of the state of the world.
The state of the world we live in and the new generations entering it is certainly worrying. Growing global and local inequalities, wars and conflicts, climate change and the mass extinction of species in the Anthropocene era, named after the main culprit of the changes it leaves as imprints on its natural environment: man.
As early as the 1970s, an international group of researchers, the Club of Rome, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explored the implications of continued unrestricted global growth. They looked at five basic factors that determine and interact to limit growth on this planet: world population growth, agricultural production, depletion of non-renewable resources, industrial production and pollution. Using a computer model, they attempted to identify several paths for the future of humanity and summarised their findings in the report Limits to Growth, published in 1972.
The message of this book is still valid today: the planet's resources cannot support the growth we expect if we continue with business as usual or pretend that everything is fine and dandy. In the 21st century, researchers predict that we will face the collapse of our social economic and ecological systems if we do not change the way of life (in most cases, the Global North) that has led us to these extremes. When scientists recently re-examined the trends we are following using newer computer models, they largely confirmed the projections made in 1972 (see graph below).
Source of graph: Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and Behrens III, W.W. (1972) Linda EcksteinBut there is also a message of hope in the book: man can create a society in which he can live on Earth indefinitely, if he imposes limits on himself and on his production of material goods, in order to achieve a state of global equilibrium between population and production. The sad thing is that almost 50 years after the publication of the book, leading politicians and multinational corporations are still operating on a business-as-usual basis, unwilling to make radical changes and impose limits. Will they finally be persuaded and moved by the masses who are now protesting and fighting for climate justice in record numbers around the world?
Lesson 2.2 Global learning for the bigger picture 2
We are therefore at a point where - truth be told - for the survival of humanity and the other species with which we share our only home, it is imperative that we become aware of all the connections, interconnections and interdependencies of our own lifestyles with other parts of the world. To become aware of the real causes of global inequality, environmental devastation and entrenchment in an unjust and often bloodthirsty system that operates for the good of nature and people. Einstein said that the same mindset that created a problem cannot solve it. Therefore, a radical change of mindset, and with it of the system that has brought us to this state of the world, is needed. But how can we change the mindset?
Global learning is certainly a tool that can help us make this mindset shift. It is both a "style of learning and a way of thinking" (Global Learning Charter, COE, 1997). It is a pedagogical approach that promotes a multi-perspective view and the deconstruction of stereotypes, and builds on the global dimensions of citizenship education, such as diversity, human rights, sustainability, peace and conflict prevention, and intercultural dialogue.
The concept itself originates largely from the work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), educational researchers, international organizations, dedicated youth workers, teachers and activists seeking to address various social, environmental, political and other global issues. Global education can equip and enable people to navigate the complexities of global challenges without despair, to develop critical analyses that connect global systems with their local contexts, to experience a sense of interconnectedness, and to work together in ways that open up different possibilities for co-existence in the future.
Although GE has traditionally found its place mostly in the informal education system or in the educational activities of various NGOs and youth organizations, the rising unpredictability of changes both in our societies and in our environment is suggesting a need for the development of partnerships that extend way beyond these traditional contexts. Only by working together across many sectors and disciplines can we hope to respond more robustly and perhaps, in due time, to these rapid changes. Challenges we are facing on a global scale are hyper-complex, multi-layered, interlocked (the solution for one thing creates problems in other places), involve many unknowns, have longer and uncertain timescales.
Our formal education leaves us unequipped to address such challenges and associated complexities, uncertainties, ambiguities, diversities, paradoxes, unequal power relations, and conflicts that are inherent to them. Often this is reflected in our work no matter our good intentions. If global challenges are addressed as regular problems, the intervention of educators, activists, CSOs, youth workers, tends to reproduce harmful patterns of:
Tackling global challenges and dealing with them on a local level through global education lens and such tools could enable avoiding those harmful patterns and approaching them in a more holistic way, breaking the dominant system, which is premised on unlimited growth and exploitation that ignores the limits of the planet.
Lesson 2.3 Methodological approaches on global education
a.) Micro-macro approach
The main forms of micro-macro approach are:
b.) Power analysis
Understanding global processes and challenges involves identifying and connecting different stakeholders based on power and profit or on human and environmental well-being. All over the world, each individual, depending on the place where he or she was born and her ethnic group and social class, has different access to resources, opportunities, choices, and possibilities to influence resource and wealth sharing decisions. We need to ask ourselves the following questions: Who cares, who is affected by the problem? Who has the power to solve it? Who owns the resources? Who are allies or opponents? What can be my role in changing the situation?
General tips
Learn to unlearn: learn to perceive that what one considers as neutral and objective is a perspective and is related to where one is coming from socially, historically and culturally (deconstruction: making visible the origins and hidden agendas of taken-for-granted concepts).
Learn directly from those living on the margins of mainstream society is absolutely something that should be considered when looking to develop new partnerships and innovative educational or other practices.
The Maastricht Declaration on Global Learning (COE, 2002), prepared by the Pan-European Congress on Global Education, also describes it in a way that is very dear to us: "Global learning opens people's eyes and minds to the realities of this world and encourages them to take action that leads to a world of greater justice, equality and human rights for all."
Recently, after a year-long process, this definition of Global Education was redefined in the so-called Dublin declaration (2022), The European Declaration on Global Education to 2050, which states: “Global Education is education that enables people to reflect critically on the world and their place in it; to open their eyes, hearts and minds to the reality of the world at local and global level. It empowers people to understand, imagine, hope and act to bring about a world of social and climate justice, peace, solidarity, equity and equality, planetary sustainability, and international understanding. It involves respect for human rights and diversity, inclusion, and a decent life for all, now and into the future.”
Both of these definitions emphasise not only the promotion of critical thinking in the face of global challenges, but also the active component of global learning: i.e. active global citizenship, which also includes values of action, of taking action. It means empowering all of us in this world and making us co-responsible for changes that will lead to the development of a just and sustainable society at local and global level. It supports the development of skills that enable us to participate actively in our communities, to think critically, to confront discrimination and stereotyping of others, and to value all beings on our planet as equals.
Global learning strengthens global competences, which are becoming essential in a rapidly changing and globalising world. Global competence can be defined as the ability and inclination to understand and act on issues of global importance (Boix Mansilla, 2017). Globally competent students prepare for such a complex world around them by:
- They learn to explore the world beyond their immediate environment, framing and making sense of important global issues,
- learn to recognise their own and others' views, articulate and interpret their own thoughtfully, and accept others' views empathetically and respectfully,
- learn to communicate across differences and bridge cultural, linguistic, economic and religious divides,
- learn how to act responsibly in the world.
You don't need to be an expert on the veritable sea of global challenges to promote global citizenship. More important is the enthusiasm and the constant willingness to ask yourself anew every day what impact your own actions have on your fellow human beings and on nature, and how each one of us, together with others, can contribute to change for the better.
The main reasons for trying to live a global learning approach are, in our view, also the following objectives:
Now, in a very special way, we will look together at what is meant by the lack of a global dimension in our perception of the world or of the seemingly trivial things in this world.
Read the following text slowly and concentrating, imagining it as vividly as possible.
Imagine you have been growing maize all year round.
First, you prepared the soil, planted the maize and hoed it until it was ripe. Now it's time to harvest it. Head out to the field with a nice wicker basket to collect the ripe corn cobs. You'll have nice, big cobs to take over the winter, as this will be your main source of food. When the basket is full, you return home and pick the corn cobs. Then put them on the table in front of you.
What is your maize like? Try to picture it as vividly as possible in your mind. Make a mental picture of that maize.
Now open the following page.
Was maize like that in your mind?
Recall the introductory lesson on different perspectives and, using the example of maize, consider the following:
Vanessa Andreotti uses the corn analogy to draw our attention to the fact that our imagination may be more limited than we thought. Our social, historical and cultural origins have a strong influence on our capacity to imagine. Awareness of this fact is very valuable as it encourages us to be more open to people and challenges around us and simply makes us humbler. Global learning is an approach that supports us in this kind of awareness-raising on a daily basis.
In summary, what has been described so far can be summarised in a few main guidelines for global learning.
1) Global learning emphasises the interdependence between the Global South and the Global North and is not limited to the presentation of global problems.
2) Global learning shows global processes from a local perspective, presents their implications for all, and is not limited to the abstract.
3) Global learning uses up-to-date and factual descriptions of people and places, it does not support the perpetuation of existing stereotypes.
4) Global learning shows the causes and consequences of global processes, it is not limited by facts and statistics.
5) Global learning emphasises the importance of long-term individual engagement in responding to global challenges, rather than supporting a sense of helplessness and fundraising for charities.
6) Global learning respects the dignity of the people it is about, it does not focus on the negative, but seeks to present a balanced picture of the world's reality.
7) Global learning encourages critical thinking and supports individuals to develop their own views on global challenges, it does not promote one ideology or offer quick answers.
8) Global learning promotes understanding and empathy, it does not resort to pity.
9) Global learning allows the people it mentions to speak for themselves, it does not rely on guesswork and imagination.
10) Global learning uses a wide variety of teaching and learning methods and is not limited to didactic learning.
11) Global learning aims to build knowledge, develop skills and change attitudes, and is not limited to knowledge transfer.
12) Global learning is learner-centred, the learning process starts with the learner's experience and is not solely teacher-led.
The Global Learning Framework infographic (below) presents in a clear and simple way the main themes, skills, values and attitudes that we want to address and promote through global learning. You can find out more about global learning in the publication Global Learning Framework, which Humanitas has produced in collaboration with our project partners as part of the »Global Issues – Global Subjects« project.
