EDUCATING FOR A GLOBAL FUTURE

by Patricia Mische

Global education is a process not limited to schools. It is an essential component of the world view which all human beings -- not just those in school -- need in order to be able to interact with the world of today and tomorrow in a creative, constructive manner. The process of global education implies an expanding consciousness of the worldwide community; ideally, it is a lifelong journey which makes students of all of us.

As I look out at the educational landscape today -- whether formal schooling, the media, or informal societal processes -- the view is not generally encouraging. "Education" is still overwhelmingly reduced to its narrowest interpretation, and to its lowest common denominator. Children (and adults) are educated only in their roles as members of a particular national, ethnic, socio-economic or religious group. Few educators are offering their students a sense of relationship to the global: to the rest of humanity, or to the earth in its infinite variety. Few are asking deeper questions about human learning and the future.

Yet in spite of this, there are growing bright spots everywhere around the world. Some of the educational visions which have been developing, although seemingly very radical and beyond the capabilities of most schools as they currently exist, are truly transformative -- global education in its broadest, most universal sense. If these visions are radical, they are radical in the sense of going to the root of our problems. They are radical because they are concerned with the building of our future -- from the ground up. To plant such educational seeds now may be the best legacy we could give the young people who tomorrow will decide our fate and the fate of the earth.

We are now facing another major transformation in human development -- one which demands a teaching/learning effort as potentially that of the transformation from hominids to homo sapiens. We are talking not about the physical development of a new brain, but about a new mind: a new way of seeing and being, of learning and teaching in and about the world.

Today's transformation, involving almost all societies around the world simultaneously, is occurring more rapidly than any previous one. Our ancestors had millions of years to make the transition from hominid to homo sapiens and to learn to live as folk societies; a few thousand to adapt to the agricultural revolution and traditional civilizations; and a few hundred -- for some societies, only a few decades to adapt to the industrial-scientific revolutions and to learn to live as nation-states.

In the last few decades over 100 new nation-states have emerged as formerly colonized peoples proclaimed their political independence from one or another Western power. Future historians may look back on our century and call it the Age of Nation-States. But they could just as logically call it the Age of Global Interdependence -- for even as these new states were declaring their sovereignty, new global-scale forces -- economic, environmental, technological -- were tying them together in such a way that activities or decisions in one part of the world affected everyone else.

Today, national sovereignty is increasingly an illusion, and the very concepts of "security" and "sovereignty" need to be redefined in the context of planetary interdependence. Today, whether it is an increase in the price of oil, a trade embargo, the population explosion, acid rain, the carbon dioxide threat, drug trafficking, terrorism, or a nuclear war, 5 billion of us will be affected. We may have only a few decades to adapt our teaching/learning modes to the new world we are now entering.

In this new world the challenges to human learning are, as they have always been, still related to the "four S's": Survival, Society, Self-Realization, and Spirituality. What is new is the context: today, we need a profound awareness and skills related not only to personal, local and national needs, but also to the planet as a whole.

Survival: Physical well-being has always required reaming how to obtain basic human needs such as food, water, shelter, and safety from external threats. In the modem era, survival needs also include employable skills, monetary transactions, and ecological sustainability. And the safety or security of persons, communities, and nations is increasingly inseparable from world security.

Society: Social well-being has always required that individuals learn to be responsible, contributing participants in a community. This includes a sense of group identity, behavioral norms, and skills in communication, decision-making, conflict resolution, governance, etc. Today, social learning is needed not only for local and national well-being, but also for that of the emerging world community. While valuing and upholding the diversity of our local cultures we also need to understand the ways in which our local communities are increasingly interdependent and to develop understandings and skills for resolving our common global problems and inevitable conflicts.

Self-realization: Learning has always been integral to the development of full human potential. Psychiatrist Abraham Maslow has described self-realization as the opposite of self-preoccupation; it is, rather, related to self-transcendence through meaningful engagement of service in the world. He sew the development of full human potential as being inseparable from world, or world law.

Spirituality: Some might include this category as part of social or self-realization above; others would ignore or deny its significance. It is included here because, through the ages, human learning has also been deeply related to a search for ultimate meaning and a sense of the sacred. Tribal and world religions, and whole cultures and civilizations, have been formed around this quest and the spiritual vision, beliefs, and teachings of figures such as Lao Tzu, Buddha, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Paul. Moreover, the development and teaching of writing began in temple schools. Only in the modem secular era has there been an attempt to separate "spiritual" from "secular" reaming, or, in some states, to eradicate it altogether. But even where it is excluded from formal education, spirituality remains a major, if underground, force in the drive to learn. Today the search for meaning and a sense of the sacred needs to be viewed in a planetary as well as personal framework. The two -- person/planet -- are unalterably linked. A privatized spirituality that seeks personal meaning or salvation at the expense of (or blissful ignorance of) planetary needs is an inadequate and even dangerous spirituality.

Dr. Patricia Mische is co-founder of Global Education Associates and has served as a consultant and educator in international education development programs in East Africa, the Philippines, and the United States. She has taught at many major universities and authored numerous books, studies, and articles. She is founding editor of the magazine Breakthrough and has conducted over 1,000 events worldwide on topics related to peace, environment, human rights, education, and international development. Her work in global education has been lauded internationally.