The big picture
Whatever else the school system in a country like ours achieves, the bottom line surely should be that it has a highly developed sense of ethics and of global as well as national citizenship.
(Barber, 1996, quoted in Brownlie, 2001, p. 4)
Recent events make the above statement more pertinent today than it was in 1996. Teachers are well aware that many, both inside and outside the profession, count on them to take on the 'huge responsibility' of educating young people to become the citizens of the future who will need to take action and find solutions to the many and unpredictable challenges that lie ahead.
Every so often it is stimulating to envision the school that you, as a teacher, really want. This can enable you and others to think more creatively and to pinpoint affirming and inspiring ways in which the school and its staff and pupils can develop and prepare for the future. Bringing the global dimension to a whole school entails discussing some of the wider issues and bigger questions - after all, not only are we all local and global citizens but schools are part of the local and global community.
What kind of school do you want?
The activity on the right stimulates discussion about the 'big picture' - the purpose of school education and what your school thinks it is trying to do.
Activity Resources:
- Images
- Interactive
- Sound
- Text
- Video
Activity
This activity is suitable for groups during INSET. It will take 30-90 minutes depending on how much discussion follows. You could act as a scribe for the activity and keep notes of the discussion.
- Click on the Text icon and print out enough copies of the 'Priority cards', from Citizenship Schools: a practical guide to education for citizenship and personal development (Alexander, 2001, p. 8), as required for each group.
- Cut up the page into individual statements.
- Invite small groups to rank the topics in a priority triangle, with one card at the top, then a row of two, then three, four, five, six and seven cards at the base. Put the highest priority card in the top rank and the lowest priority cards in the bottom rank, reflecting the actual priorities of the school.
- Ask each group to state the topics in their top three ranks, giving evidence or reasons for their decisions. Keep a note on a flipchart.
- As a whole group, discuss the outcomes.
- Consider what would happen if you were to repeat the exercise, asking each group to rank their ideal priorities. Would there be any differences from the first ranking?
- Discuss the outcome, and consider what changes you might want to make to the school curriculum.
- Keep a record of the outcomes of this activity to feed into reviews of the school development plan.
