During the last year and a half I've been obtaining my Master's in Art Education Degree at Boston University. My natural interests and my artistic interests easily merge into the area of globally inspired art and I have a bent toward exploring globalization in the art room, even the elementary art room. The following are some of my thoughts on this subject which is very important to me, but should be important to all of us in a shrinking, changing world. I recently wrote this short expose on globalization and globally inspired art. It is my basic philosophy on the importance of teaching students about the world at large:
Photo: The photo below is of Nakateete School in Uganda where I had the privilege of teaching short-term a couple of years ago. It is still near and dear to my heart. I'll post soon about the exciting details of my school raising money to put a water well at the school this year!
GLOBALLY INSPIRED ART AND GLOBALIZATION
Education will always be surrounded with timely events and issues.
Curriculum choices, state and national standards and testing, the 21st century
purpose of testing, budgeting and facilities, and student needs are relevant
issues in education. For many years multiculturalism has also been an important
focus of education. No longer on the distant horizon, however, globalization, a
relatively new term, is here to stay and must be investigated.
Communities
used to exist in the United States and in other countries where most of the
people in that community looked alike and had similar cultural backgrounds and
characteristics. One can almost definitively say those days are over for the
planet Earth. Through technology, mankind has learned to travel and communicate
with a speed that former generations would have never imagined. Quechua
children who live high in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador stand outside their
thatched grass hut with no electricity or plumbing, but talk on their parent’s
cell phone and inquisitively view images of a world they have never seen. Simultaneously, some American children
are busy playing games on their own cell phones, texting friends, and watching
videos. I have witnessed both. I believe it is vital for INQUISITIVE American
educators to begin teaching their students about more realistic aspects of the
greater world, not just the geography and history of that world. I also believe it is vital for
this education to start at the elementary level. If we care about our students’ futures I believe we, as
educators, must prepare them for globalization. I feel there is a sense of urgency in this area as the world
is changing rapidly.
Globalization
refers to the interconnectedness of markets, communication, and human migrations. Technology has forever shrunk the
world; at least as long as current and future technologies continue to exist. Borders and boundaries are no longer as
fixed as they once were. Our students
and their families are living in a complex, technologically advancing, ever
changing, diverse, and interconnected world. Our students go to school in this world and they will one
day work in the marketplace; quite possibly a global marketplace. A globally informed pedagogy is needed
not only because the world is changing and for assimilation, but to keep our
students competitive, to keep America competitive, and to keep education
relevant in a changing world.
Students
should be taught within the emerging globalized context. When students are
engaged in concepts and cognitive processes involving critical inquiry and
reflection, it will generate within the student the desire and ability to ask
questions about relationships observed in society. Micro-level thinking must give way to macro-level thinking. American students must learn about the
world before graduation and before it is their time to go out into it. When education is presented with a
globalization framework, there are several positive results including more
deeply engaged students in the process of critical inquiry, incorporating the
use of information technology as a tool for learning, emphasizing higher order
thinking skills, offering a more cross-disciplinary and holistic view of
practices, developing ethical leadership, and being inclusive of the growing
diversity in society.
Additionally, if teachers
reexamine developmental theory and merge it with globalization concepts,
students will be the benefactors. Jean Piaget, one of the most prominent child
development psychologists of all times, conducted all of his research before
the Internet existed during the first half of the 20th century. Piaget’s research concluded that
children between the ages of 7-11 are in the concrete operational phase of
development. He proposed that their thought processing was concrete and focused
on the actual and factual aspects of subjects and topics. He believed abstract
thinking, which allows students to think about the why and how and what for,
came at an older age. Therein lies the current quandary. The Internet isn’t
just reshaping the speed of communication and information; in some ways, it
might be reshaping our future by redefining what we know about ourselves. It
might be requiring students to think abstractly sooner as they travel the
Internet community.
Today’s
young students have access to a wide variety of images and information via the
Internet before they have the cognitive development to understand what they
see. One could say that children are being forced into abstract thinking before
they have developed the proper and normal sequence for that broader type of
thinking. This must be a serious concern for educators and parents and viable
options for teaching students about the greater world must be creatively
explored. Schools must be
pro-active in not just monitoring Internet use, but in deciphering it.
Globally
inspired curriculum units have the ability to stir new knowledge in the minds
of young students while promoting student growth that will transfer into all
areas of their academic and personal life. This kind of teaching constructs bridges to their future in
the global marketplace. Innovative
units, such as The Crazy, Colorful Colorwheel Project that I have developed,
partner school students in differing countries through art and technology. The
Cuban Heart Project that my students did before my trip to Cuba with the
National Art Education Association was a simple project that taught my
elementary students about developing nations and different types of
governments. Globally inspired
curriculum broadens our students sense of who they are and our world.
The
local community will always be important, but educators must act locally while
thinking globally. Margaret Mead, an American cultural anthropologist, believed “what
distinguishes human groups one from another is not inborn; it is the way in
which each has organized and perpetuated experience and the access each has had
to other living traditions.” By teaching our students about the
global community, we strengthen the local one.
