Educational Studies 632: Global Education provides students with the opportunity to explore their place in the world community by learning about education and global issues from what may be termed a "Southern" perspective—that is, from the perspective of the underdeveloped, developing world. The course encourages students to seek links between their individual lived experience and local, national, and global events and conditions. There are five themes highlighted in the course, each of which attempts to connect the individual level to the global: alternative media, development, the environment, human rights, and global conflict and peace education. We will analyze these topics from an action-oriented perspective, which will help students to implement the practical aspects of these areas in their everyday life and work.
We take up alternative media first, because it is important to have a critical understanding of the ways in which mainstream media detracts from a balanced perspective of our world, inevitably affecting the conditions of the South. We then focus on development, the environment, and human rights, because these themes demonstrate how much of our mainstream information, through education and the media, is defined and presented from a Western Euro-American globalized perspective. This kind of perspective often ignores critical unique aspects of the histories and specific conditions of Southern counties and complicates a fair and balanced implementation of universal laws and principles shaped and shared by the various world cultures, religions, and spiritual philosophies. Finally, the course addresses past, present, and ongoing global conflicts and the impact that they have on the state of peace in the world in its entirety. We examine events such as September 11, 2001, the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq under a critical lens and through the varied perspectives of different lived experiences and peoples.
By the end of this course, students should be able to clearly understand their impact on the world and ways in which they can positively contribute to creating a more equitable and sustainable world. The course is also designed with the hope that students will learn something new, challenge themselves, engage with others in the course, and have fun.
