Discussing global issues with U.S. youth
David Donaldson is the Director of Education at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. He’ll be blogging regularly for Fieldnotes about the TeachUNICEF program and other topics of interest for people who work with youth.
|
|
| © UNICEF/NYHQ2007-1106/Shehzad Noorani | |
| In Afghanistan, a young girl writes on the blackboard during a class inside a mosque that serves as a community-based school, on the outskirts of the north-western city of Herat. |
At TeachUNICEF, we strive to empower, engage, and inspire youth to become lifelong global citizens. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF believes that youth can play an important role in the survival, protection, and development of children around the world. As a way to engage youth in these serious issues we have developed free standards-based resources (e.g. units, case studies, videos, statistics, and service tips) for U.S. educators that reflect the work of UNICEF and its partners.
We realize that teaching global issues in the classroom can be challenging, but like many, we think it’s imperative that our youth become well informed about our world and its pressing issues. We hope that by providing a space for discourse we can learn from one another. To get the conversation started we’d like to pose two questions:
What are some of the strategies that you’re using?
Have you encountered any challenges?
I am short a word how to express about my interest and trust on UNICEF.
thanks to UNICEF
I’ve used Youtube videos with my students so they can immediately connect with someone who has taken the time to document a situation or an idea or an incident. Regardless of whether or not it is a controversial issue, I always warn students that what they see on such public websites are not fact but the perspective of the individual posting the video. In other words, I teach them to be critical learners. The technology available to U.S. educators gives us a tremendous opportunity to move beyond abstract concepts related to world issues to something more tangible. For the visual, tech savvy learners of this generation, not using the available technology to make our world a smaller place seems a waste. What organizations like UNICEF can do is organize and archive different primary source material for educators and students to use when teaching about local or global issues.