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In the following article Sara Coumantarakis, formerly with the Alberta Global Education project and currently promoting global education through Alberta’s The Learning Network, elaborates on the need for Global Education.

Why Global Education?

“There are no environmental problems, just plenty of social, political, ideological and economic ones which affect the environment.”

Graeme Gibson

In a recent Edmonton Journal article, Senate reformer Bert Brown criticized Senator Douglas Roche’s work of “helping the disadvantaged and promoting a secure world free of nuclear weapons” as “hardly priority issues for Albertans“. “He’s interested in nuclear disarmament, or whatever, but the impact of what he does through that is virtually nothing,” Brown stated. ¹

Global education may help future Bert Browns gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a responsible global citizen. Senator Roche has consistently lent his voice to democratic debate on issues of peace and justice and these are definitely priority items to this Albertan and, I believe, a necessary part of educating the next generation for finding their place in a rapidly changing world.

A global education helps students understand the interconnections which are now global in scope. In a world in which 400 billionaires control the same amount of wealth as nearly half the world’s people, we cannot pretend that our choices on this island of comfort called North America do not impact the lives of fellow humans around the world.

Solutions do not lie in filling our heads with the information about the global challenges that face us. Each day’s newspaper is a litany of problems relating to population, conflict, hunger, another species gone, another ecosystem under duress. The cumulative result of this overload can be apathy, despair or cynicism.

To my mind global education gives students the opportunity to make sense of the huge amount of information that technology now dumps on our doorstep each morning, on our computer screen each afternoon, or delivers to our TV screen each night. It allows us to fit the issues into a framework from which we draw meaning about ourselves and about the world.

What is global education?

I question whether the current vision driving education today will move us toward a world which we desire. I have now been a student, a teacher, and a parent of students, and I am amazed at the faith that we continue to place in education in spite of endless statistics on how it does not work for too many students. I believe that our young people yearn for more meaning in their lives, for a purpose which goes beyond preparing for a job. A global education recognizes the role each individual can play in creating what global educator Dr. David Selby calls “a preferred future.” ²

University of Alberta professors of global education, Dr. Toh Swee-Hin and Dr. Virginia Floresca-Cawagas, offer a “transformative paradigm of global literacy” that “empowers learners not only to critically understand the world’s realities in a holistic framework, but also to move learners and teachers to act towards a more peaceful, just and liberating world.” ³

Global education is about developing a perspective which sees the interrelationships between issues and between peoples. This is well illustrated when one looks at the problems of Kosovo. Is this a peace issue? An environmental issue? A human rights issue? A sustainable development issue? Kosovars who enjoyed a brief respite in Alberta and have since returned home tell of fear for their safety, a devastated community, both physically and economically, and an unstable political system. We send peacekeepers and we send aid. We may have neighbours with relatives in Kosovo and we may be part of a sponsoring group who welcomed refugees. We are fellow members of the global community and as such have a responsibility to examine the structures that allow the Kosovos to continue to happen and world to pursue paths of violence and war, and work for change. Graeme Gibson has stated, “There are no environmental problems, just plenty of social, political, ideological and economic ones which affect the environment.”

The work is hard work and hard workers need support. It is wonderful for those of us who specialize in this field to find a home within the new GEOEC, where where we can help teachers deepen their understanding of what it is to be global, environmental and outdoor educators. I hope that the GEOEC, its newsletter Connections, its annual conference, and its many other services for teachers can serve as an ongoing forum for discussions on the “how” of global education.

Sara Coumantarakis coordinates the Global Education Program of Learning Network. Phone 1-888-945-5500 or e-mail sarac@ualberta.ca for “Global Education Resources for Alberta Teachers”.