Global Engagement
Is international 'mindedness' enough? Being 'mindful' is also about making a commitment to do something - to inquire, to learn and to serve. Internationally-minded learners actively demonstrate responsibility for and commitment to making a difference in the world.
The IB describes international-mindedness as composing of three components: multilingualism, intercultural understanding and global engagement.
Global engagement represents a commitment to address the world's greatest challenges both in and beyond the classroom. IB World Schools should:
- provide opportunities for sustained inquiry into a wide range of local, national and globally significant issues;
- explore global concerns (the environment, development, conflict, rights, cooperation and governance) across a variety of geographical and cultural dimensions.
Global engagement is so central to IB Mission that it forms the focus of one of a new set of workshops under the title 'What is an IB Education?' The workshop is called Living and Learning Globally. You may like to refer to the following webpages to explore these themes:
What is our Global Context?
Why global issues?
Activity 1: Think piece - Learners without Borders
Click here to access Irene Davy's think piece Learners without borders: A curriculum for global citizenship.
Use the A paragraph, sentence, phrase, word protocol to reflect on this paper:
- Individually or as a group review the paper and then:
highlight a sentence that helped you understand the paper and contains the 'big idea'
underline a phrase that resonated with you - in a meaningful or provoking way
circle a word that stood out to you and captured your attention - Each person or group shares their thoughts with each other. What is highlighted? What is at the heart of the paper? How did you make your choice?
- Look at your responses. What are the implications of your choices? Which common themes emerge? Which questions remain?
Which global issues?
Activity 2: Research global issues
- Individually, and then as a group, identify the top 10 global issues you think students should understand. Access the following sites to inspire you:
UN Declaration of Human Rights. Click here to access this site.
UNESCO. Click here to access this site.
Jean François Rischard’s 20 Global Issues. Click here to access a summary.
- Map out where the 10 global issues you have selected are taught in your school: curriculum and extra-curricular activities.
Activity 3: IB Global Engagement
- Access the Global Engagement documents on MyIB - they can be found in the cross-curricular publications.
- Individually or as a small group choose one of the following fact sheets - ensuring that all global engage subjects identified by the IB are covered. Teaching and learning about ...
Conflict
Cooperation and governance
Development
Rights
Environment - Each group should be ready to feedback to the whole group using the framework in Jigsaw a document or book namely:
Big idea - summary of the big idea
Sentence -Record a sentence that was meaningful to you and helped you gain a deeper understanding of the text
Phrase - record a phrase that engaged or provoked you
Word - that captured your attention or struck you as powerful - Choose one of the global issues, design and plan an activity for you to lead on in school that will make a difference.
Globally engaged IB teachers
Activity 4: What does a globally engaged teacher look like?
Recruiting a teacher who is globally engaged.
- Write both an advert and a person specification for a teacher you wish to recruit who in addition to be a subject specialist is also globally engaged. What would you include? What skills and attributes do you wish them to possess? How would you test out evidence of their global engagement?
Dig deeper:
A good reflective piece is Developing more globally engaged faculties. Click here.
Other pages on this website explore our global context. Go to What is our Global Context?, Global Competencies , Global Citizen - Taking Action and Global Issues
We look at the global classroom under the IB Approaches to Teaching when we explore how teaching is Developed in global contexts.
Dig deeper
- The International Global Citizen's Award is open to all people who are aged 11. It offers opportunities to develop as global citizens. The award is offered in three categories: bronze, silver and gold.
- The Model United Nations (Model UN) is an educational simulation competition in which students take on the role of representatives of countries that are not their own and discuss global issues. Click here to access Wikipedia's description of MUN.
Global Issues
Human Rights: a good website to visit is The Disorder of Things: For the relentless criticism of all existing conditions since 2010. Click here and here to access it.