Global Citizenship Education can utilize a multitude of participatory teaching and learning methodologies. These can include: discussion and debate; role-play; ranking exercises; and communities of enquiry. These methods are now established as best practices in education, and are not unique to Global Citizenship Education. However, when used in conjunction with a global perspective, they can help young people to learn how decisions made by people in other parts of the world affect our lives, just as our decisions affect the lives of others.
Tips for global citizenship education integration:
- Use inquiry-based and experiential teaching and learning tasks.
- Ask students to become the experts. Let them be the researchers and design the questions they would like to answer.
- Ask students what they would need to become experts in this field: where can they access information and expertise; whose voices need to be heard in order to get the facts on the issues?
- Give students the tools and the opportunity to go find out the answers to the questions on their own.
- If possible, get students out of the classroom to experience aspects of the globe they are studying.
- Have students determine what global citizenship is and what it is not.
- Introduce students to words like “empowerment,” “solidarity,” and “equity.”
- Have students challenge the picture of reality that is shown to them in the media: is what they are looking at true? Does it represent the whole truth? Whose perspectives can help us get a fuller picture of the truth?
Where can Education for Global Citizenship be incorporated into curriculum?
- English Language Arts (multi-literacy practices – reading, writing, oral communication, media literacy);
- Social Studies (human relationships, human-earth relationships);
- Sciences (environmental issues and sustainability; conflicts of values – religious, political, economic);
- Health (global health issues, migration, food);
- Business and Economics (globalization, trade, global finance networks and institutions);
- Math (substituting x, y, z for real world variables; learning math through social justice);
- Art (visual culture, photography, dance, drama, music);
- Physical Education (outdoor activities, appreciating the outdoor environment)
