Global+Literacies+&+Learning

Global Literacies & Learning: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally"


//Hehe, Xiex// by Zhang Huan image online at http://www.artforworldexpo.com/exhibitionworks/works_19_ZhangHuan.html

"A composer cannot write enchanting melody with one note, and a painter cannot paint landscape with only one color. The world is a treasure house where the unique cultural achievement created by people of all countries are displayed."

"We should uphold the diversity of the world, enhance dialogue and interaction between civilizations, and draw on each other's strength instead of practicing mutual exclusion. When this is done, mankind will enjoy greater harmony and happiness and the world will become a more colorful place to live in."

//excerpts from comments by Chinese President Hu Jintao at Yale University, April 20, 2006// //online at []//


 * What is global learning? **

An approach to learning which suggests that culture plays a role in learning and that information is dynamic.

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[|Learning around the world]: A diversity of experiences


 * Global learning is a local issue **

__** An activity to connect the local and the global **__

Many of us have heard the phrase “Think Globally, Act Locally.” The term, which has been used as a rallying cry for environmentalist and has been used in schools to coordinate community service projects has its origins in early 20th century Scotland. Sir Patrick Geddes is credited with originating the idea (although not the actual term) in his 1915 book “Cities in Evolution.”

Geddes was a horticulturalist and city planner, among other things. In describing how city mangers might restore communities, in Geddes case a dilapidated part of his hometown Edinburgh Scotland, Geddes wrote,

" 'Local character' is thus no mere accidental old-world quaintness, as its mimics think and say. It is attained only in course of adequate grasp and treatment of the whole environment, and in active sympathy with the essential and characteristic life of the place concerned.”

Geddes was arguing that to have a positive effect on a local place, we must think about the larger context within which it exists, hence the idea that we must Think Globally, and then Act Locally. In the early 20th century, the idea that a local English community had some global character was novel. It might make sense to flip that consideration today.

How can we apply Geddes' Think Globally, Act Locally ideal to learning? Or, how might be turn Geddes' idea around and find local ways of learning that can be applied in global contexts? Describe a unique activity people learn how to do in your home community or some knowledge that is unique to your home. How do people learn about this activity or gain this knowledge? How can we use these local approaches to learning in the classroom?

Please post your findings as a comment to [|this blog post] on the New LIt ning.

Below is a Google Map with the home comnities for all the participants in the 2010 Beijing New Literacies Institute.

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