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A rounded education
Global education, sustainable development or global citizenship? Whatever the title, teachers across Scotland are looking at ways to incorporate a global dimension into their classrooms to help children understand the challenges we face.
But how do you engage school children in the lofty and somewhat abstract ideals of being a good global citizen? According to teachers who have successfully introduced it into their lessons, the best way is not to teach it, but to use it as a way of sparking discussion to help children develop critical thinking.
Linda Kilpatrick from St Leonard's Primary School in Dunfermline believes global citizenship has a huge role to play in CfE - and, thanks to a life-like doll called Cecilia, she was able to start the process with a nursery class.
Linda said starting young children thinking about others in the world can be quite a challenge: "Children at this age are, by nature, ego-centric and only interested in their own world.
"So the best way of tackling global citizenship issues with this age group is to introduce them to the lives of children in other countries. And that's why Linda enrolled the help of a little Kenyan doll called Cecilia.
"Cecilia was a great success with the children," explained Linda. "We started by discussing what was the same between African and Scottish children, and then moved on to the differences and the way children lived in Africa.
"They were fascinated about every aspect of Cecilia's life and even took turns to take the doll home to show their parents and to tell them about how Cecilia lived in Kenya," she added.
This helped Linda develop other learning projects which could be integrated into the traditional subjects of the curriculum.
But how do you get disengaged teenagers involved in the global citizenship agenda? The key is to be creative, as teacher Jane Arnold found.
She explained: "I felt like it was going to be an uphill struggle to engage this group in Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies (RMPS), but using the global citizenship approach I had to admit that I was stunned by the response of the pupils to these topics."
Jane said the key to her success was taking a more flexible approach to the topics covered under RMPS. For example, Jane showed her classes the film 'Hotel Rwanda' - the harrowing story of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
She said: "They were concerned with the lives of the refugees after seeing the camps the film characters had visited. We went on to explore the issues of refugees more broadly and used the resource 'Refugees - we left because we had to', which includes the exploration of moral issues, as well as religious viewpoints on conflicts."
Teacher Gary Farr also advocates that global citizenship helps with the academic and emotional development of the young people he teaches.
His school generally takes teenagers who have been referred from mainstream schools because of behavioural issues and the teachers work alongside social workers to support the youngsters in English, Maths and History.
Gary said that citizenship issues are naturally integrated into these subjects: "In addition to the important literacy and numeracy skills, these subjects allow us to explore wider issues that attempt to make the young people question things and develop critical skills.
"In English, we can look at newspapers and discuss aspects like censorship, freedom of expression and what happens when these are controlled in other countries.
"While these youngsters have issues and may come from deprived backgrounds, it's quite an eye-opener to see how they can empathise with others around the world. They can appreciate that other groups, like immigrants, are on the edge of society, just like them, and they can empathise with the hardships they are going through," he added.
Fancy a go?
There are lots of resources for teachers and ScotDEC is one of six Global Education Centres in Scotland promoting global citizenship.
ScotDEC provides teaching resources, CPD and conferences to show teachers how they can integrate global citizenship into their practice and schedules.
It has recently expanded its resources through the launch of two new learning packs: Failte Malawi for primary schoolchildren to explore the links between Scotland and Malawi; and A' Adam's Bairns? for 10-14-year-olds, which explores equality and diversity in Scotland.
ScotDEC's Susan McIntosh said that global citizenship helps provide an engaging context for the range of subjects as well as being an ideal vehicle for interdisciplinary and cross-curricular working, as promoted by CfE.
However, the real strength of ScotDEC's resources is as a catalyst for discussions. Susan explained: "It's all about getting children to think about issues and look at the causes and consequences of social and political events, locally and globally.
"Our work is about encouraging critical thinking and giving children the tools to analyse information and make their minds up about issues - and understand what it really means to be a global citizen."
For more information, visit www.scotdec.org.ukOut of Africa Case study
Ann Moore has just returned from a trip to Saboro Primary School in northern Ghana.
Her school has had links with Saboro since 2004, but this is the first time the school has arranged a visit.
This regular contact with the African school provides great global citizenship material for teachers to incorporate into their lessons.
Ann said: "Saboro is in a poor rural area where the facilities are very basic. It makes our children realise there are people in the world less fortunate than them and it encourages them to do things to help. They feel very involved and will be looking forward to hearing from the school's head teacher when she visits."
On her visit, Ann helped the Saboro teachers prepare to become a UNICEF's "rights-respecting school", so that both schools can develop the initiative together and learn from each other's experiences.