In 2015 the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals as a global agenda for humanity towards a more inclusive, just and peaceful world. Within the SDG’s, education is formulated both as a goal (target 4) in itself and as a means for attaining all the other SDGs. It is not only an integral part of sustainable development, but also a key enabler for it.
Global citizenship as a concept contains the key competencies which enable learners to work on the SDG’s. Global citizenship education stands for transformative education, which takes a multifaceted approach and employs methodologies applied in areas such as human rights education, peace education, education for sustainable development and education for international understanding.
This summer course works on two levels. This course enables participants on to grow as a global citizen on a personal level and establishes also a learning process on a didactical level. Through good teaching practices, various educational approaches and a strong theoretical bases the course offers teachers and future-teachers the essential competen-cies to work globally competent with the SDG’s in their own class rooms or professional context.
The course is organized by UC Leuven-Limburg (UCLL). As a member of the ASP-network, UCLL is an UNESCO-school, which implies that the teacher education values global com-petencies strongly in her curricula. The theoretical frameworks of UNESCO and Oxfam Foundation are taken as a starting point.
Target group
Teachers and future-teachers of all educational levels and nationalities.
Learning goals
The learning goals of the summer course are twofold. On the one hand this 4-days-course strenghtens participants to work on their own global citizenship competencies and make the SDG’s tangible in their personal live. On a second level the course enables teachers to work on Global Citizenship Education (GCE) and Education for the SDG’s with their pupils.
The learning goals of Education for the SDG’s formulated by UNESCO are:
- System thinking: the ability to recognize and understand relationships between different causes, levels, visions, places, times, …
- Anticipatory competency: the ability to evaluate multiple possible futures and visions.
- Normative competency: the ability to reflect on the norms and values that underlie one’s actions and to compare with sustainability values.
- Strategic competency: the ability to implement innovative actions that promote sustainability.
- Collaboration competency: the ability to learn from others, to understand and respect the needs and actions of others (empathy) and to deal with conflicts in a group.
- Critical thinking competency: the ability to question norms, practices and opinions of yourself and others.
- Self-awareness competency: the ability to reflect on one’s own role in the local community and (global) society.
- Integrated problem-solving competency: the ability to develop viable, inclusive and equitable solution options.
Programme
On the first level the course offers participants a profound insight in SDG’s and Global Citizenship. Starting from various concrete testimonies on world challenges, participants get acquainted with the framework of the SDG’s and the concept of Global Citizenship. A visit to the European Parliament in Brussels, where the role of international institutions is visible, is included.
On a second level participants explore various educational approaches such as philosophy with children, collaborative and interactive learning, system thinking and inquiry based learning. During this phase participants will visit the Red Star Line Museum, a place that invites us to reflect on migration in the past and nowadays.
The final task of the course consist of a personal reflection on the way they want to adopt the SDG’s in their personal and professional live. Which world challenges interest you the most? What kind of engagement do you see for yourself in the near future? How can you work on the SDG’s and GCE with your class? This process is supported by means of art education. This context stimulates creative reflection and out-of-the-box thinking.
In every stadium the course works with a multi-perspective approach, which allows participants to explore different opinions, various causes, multiple factors and possible solu-tions. The course values thereby a permanent sharing of ideas with other participants. This approach broadens our horizons and deepens our insights. By working this way we fully master the theory, not only by knowing its features and characteristics but also by being able to apply it to our own personal and professional lives.