NAME: JESSEL P.

PALERMO

A webinar paper on "EDUCATION FOR GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP AND

SURVIVAL."

The idea of global citizenship suggests a norm of international goodwill

or disposition to promote the well-being of others everywhere, present and

future, at least to the extent of respecting the requirements of global justice or

fair terms of international cooperation. For example, a school class refuses to

accept the pending deportation of their classmate –she does not have the

right of residence – because they perceive their friend as integrated and

belonging to their group; they do not accept the fact that she does not have

the right to stay. Another example of this is, a European school class has a

partnership with a class in an African country. The liaison does not manifest

itself in the usual charity for the "poor children down there", but in a project:

the pupils investigate political participation opportunities in both countries and

are engaged in an equal exchange. These are examples of individuals seeing

themselves as global citizens and acting accordingly. The third example,

moreover, illustrates what Global Citizenship Education may look like.

The author discusses the following issues that we are facing globally.

The global food crisis, tightening oil supplies, and growing public concern

about global warming across the globe suggest that there is a rising

sustainability crisis at hand. The rising of global populations has resulted in

the rise of average material/ resource consumption. It has been a challenge in

the global economy, and the longer it does continue, the greater risk will be of

catastrophic population collapse, aside from population collapse. Other

biological organisms are a source of our food supply in the threshold of

extinction.

Many specific aspects of the unsustainability of our collective existence

could be mentioned, but energy, water, and climate disruption are the most

essential. We face problems like declining World oil reserves resulting in its

increasing prices in the market. There are problems with water availability in

some parts of the world. It is getting worse as global warming results in

drought conditions. These problems faced by the globe right now is more than

enough to call for a response from people across the world for the following

reasons: First is because everyone is entitled to education for global

citizenship and survival. It is because human is entitled to have their needs

met. It is arguably a condition of a just society that individuals not be denied

substantial opportunities to live well "as an avoidable result of the design of

social institutions" (Brighouse 2006, 18). One could appeal to a notion of

universal human rights linked to a conception of the capabilities people must

exercise to live a life of human dignity. The second reason is that there are

moral and prudential grounds for cooperating to solve the problems of

sustainability and survival and the desirability of cooperation. Third, education

is a prerequisite for sustaining any other reasonable education goals. Whether

our aim as educators is to enable children to lead flourishing lives, to facilitate

the conscious reproduction of democratic communities, to preserve and

transmit the best of what human beings have achieved, or to secure any other

good whose fulfilment requires an indefinite civilized future, our educational

mission involves the survival of civilized world order. It must take some

responsibility to incorporate a curriculum of survival.

 The following are the things we need to teach for a curriculum of

survival:

Teach Environmental Studies More Systematically. They can use what

they learn in this subject in studying the environmental problems faced by the

world, and they can create solutions to the emerging issues.

Integrate this with natural history and pre-history. Learners need to know

their account so that they would have an idea of how civilization survives.

Integrate Economics with These Environmental Studies. Economics plays

a vital role in sustainable development. Economics focuses on the allocation

of scarce resources to meet the desired goals of the people or individuals.

Encourage Resourcefulness, Inventiveness, and Adaptability. Learners

are inherently resourceful, inventive and can adapt to changing world. All we

need is proper reinforcement and encourage their creativeness.

Encourage the Environmentally Friendly Activities as a Basis for

flourishing Lives. Such friendly activities include using a bicycle in

replacement to fueled vehicles. It will not only reduce fuel combustion but is

also a healthy way of living.

De- Commercial Schools. Commercial messages to consume, define one's

identity through consumption, and address one's problems through material

consumption should be banned from schools, except as objects of critical-

thinking exercises.
Teach Children to Distinguish the Truth from Propaganda. Students must

be aware of the false information, especially those in social media and around

the globe, to avoid misconceptions and confusion.

Prepare Children for Global Cooperation. With the rising sustainable crisis,

we need to prepare them for Global cooperation in solving social issues.

Prepare Everyone for a World with Lower Fertility Rates and the

Prospect of Fewer Human Beings. Teaching them population education and

encourage them to raise awareness on the effects of a large population would

help them understand the need for lower fertility rates.

The author concludes that the idea of education for survival may seem

peculiar and marginal to the traditional and contemporary concerns of the

philosophy of education. And apart from it being necessary, it is a natural

extension of other recent developments in the philosophy of education and

not entirely without precedent in the field's history. Focusing on the limits to

growth and the associated need for equity would return the area to an

essential aspect of its roots. Many of the world's language and ethnic groups

are indeed threatened with extinction through assimilation and genocide and

cultural, economic, and geographic encroachment; national minorities often

"demand various forms of autonomy or self-government to ensure their

survival as distinct societies" (Kymlicka 1995, 10). The educational debates

associated with these matters have focused on language rights and tensions

between the cultural autonomy of adults, the future independence and well-

being of children whose parents and communities may use their educational

discretion to discourage deviations from cultural norms, and the claims of

liberal-democratic societies to establish academic standards consistent with a

liberal-democratic political culture. Will Kymlicka, a prominent liberal theorist

of minority rights, repeatedly notes that cultural survival depends partly on a

culture's material basis and ability to control and ensure the adequacy of that

material basis. He notes the fundamental importance of fishing and hunting

rights to some cultures and that "indigenous struggles over land are the single

largest cause of ethnic conflict in the world" (Kymlicka 1995, 43).

In our world, where much of the material basis of a sustainable human

existence is imperiled by overreaching, the education that will enable

individual governments and societies to survive is not likely to be the

education of our partisan dreams and patriotic pride. In the meantime, the

schools in these suburbs are, for the most part, blindly replicating a culture of

consumption that is not only doomed but also hard to reconcile with any

reasonable terms of global cooperation compatible with the survival of many

other linguistic and ethnic groups.

References:

Werner Wintersteiner Susanne Reitmair-Juárez.

http://www.demokratiezentrum.org/fileadmin/media/pdf/Materialien/GlobalCitiz

enshipEducation_Final_english.pdf

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