Educational Purpose

6.2.1.1 Educational Purpose

The unanimous and overwhelming reason for being involved with Global Connections was the promise offered by the ‘connection’ to Indonesia. In particular, the teachers were interested in the opportunity that the connection seemed to offer their students to learn authentically about the young people in Indonesia. In this way, the purpose of the program was seen in terms of the program’s title – it was about connecting the students to a global community. The following are quotes from all four teachers:

I would like them (school’s students) to see what life is like in a third world country, really like... I’d like them to see, this is real life and be a bit more appreciative when you hear about things and just to know a little bit more about the world...

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Me talking about it for a whole 75 minutes you know, they might listen to a little bit of it but then they tune out. But if you’ve got something written down from a student from Indonesia and this is what they’re going through and this is real life primary evidence, well that’s better than reading 20 books.

Just the connectedness to it, yeah. I think, as well, making it real... I can talk for a whole semester about development issues and the kids are going, oh yeah, that’s interesting....but this really makes it hit home to them... the kids would be engaged.

What I am keen to see happen... is kids be engaged and to be thinking beyond what they would normally think about.... I think kids learn best when they have real examples.... And what the people are doing over there, like, again, reading it through text books and stuff, that’s fine but is it real?

However, the connection was not entirely seen as an end in itself and the teachers all appreciated that the ‘connection’ was to lead to active involvement in social issues. In this way, the purpose was also seen as being directed to participation in a (global) social community. The teachers clearly related Global Connections to social purposes of education which they strongly identified as an important role of their school. In the early part of the interviews there was no concern at all with regard to the way that the program connected to the formal curriculum. Instead, everybody spoke about the ways that their school encouraged community projects and connected their students to outside organisations involved with social well-being and community development.

There were a large number of projects and organisations mentioned and a wide range of student activity including: fundraising projects to raise money for causes such as guide dogs, and the children’s hospital; helping sports clubs with coaching juniors outside of school hours; working with the local primary school to mentor students; and working actively in the school with outside organisations like SchoolAid, and the Oaktree Foundation and their respective missions of ‘helping kids in crisis’ (SchoolAid, 2011), and ‘ending global poverty’ (Oaktree, 2010). Much of the activity mentioned in the interviews was extra-curricular, but quite a few projects were generated from the classroom and took place in class time including, for example, a totally student driven initiative that resulted in painting a mural in a cancer ward in a Melbourne hospital.

In all of the ways discussed, the teachers indicated that the school was committed to facilitating the ways that students related socially and fit into their social communities. The balance of how

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oriented education was prioritised or aligned with academic achievement was not explicitly

addressed, but it was evident that real passion, enthusiasm and pride were associated with student engagement outside of discipline-oriented learning.

The theme of social engagement was strongly echoed by Principals’ and Assistant Principals’

comments. These school management representatives clearly had little specific knowledge of Global Connections and needed the program to be outlined but they quickly seized on the citizenship theme and how that connected to the schools identity:

It obviously fits with core school values, very much, yeah. ...these are the issues that I really think are the key issues for educators. That statement sounds a bit sort of trite but education is actually the greatest resource we have now and if we can educate people to do the right thing globally, then we’re going to actually raise consciousness.

Yeah, there’s not, there aren’t enough linkages between the broader community and schools. And that sort of partnership can be very powerful.

This fits very much within where we’re going in terms of our vision as a school. One of the things is looking at them as global citizens. In fact, we’ve used that exact terminology. So, this fits in absolutely beautifully.

Global Connections was not seen therefore as necessarily transformative with regard to its focus on citizenship and its orientation to the social purposes of education. However, what all the teachers recognised in this respect was that although the principles were very similar to ones that

underpinned other social action promoted by the schools, the particular global orientation was unique. The global focus was highly valued and although the schools made definite attempts to create global experiences for their students⁶² such experiences were recognised as being under represented in the mix of school activities.

To this end, the ‘global’ aspect was again interpreted through the connection to the Indonesian young people and it was assumed that the action phase of the program would also be embedded in that connection. In this way, the program was seen as contributing to what was already an

62 There were exceptions for example one of the teachers accompanied students on a semester break exchange overseas;

students at another of the schools were involved in a project that linked them into global online conferences on various global issues. One of the students at the school became the global adjudicator and ran an international conference from the school. However, such opportunities were not widely available to the majority of students.

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aspirational goal of creating well-rounded global citizens. The program was endorsed at all levels by all the interview participants with regard to its philosophical intent and the broad goals of enhancing citizenship and taking social action.

Underpinning the teachers’ interest in making the global connection was the common view that their students were relatively unconnected outside their immediate communities:

I mean, for a lot of these kids XXXX (the local shopping centre) is a major big shopping centre. I mean that’s a lot of their existence (the shopping centre) and their home....a lot of them don’t get out a great deal so I think it’s good for them to expand their horizons.

These kids especially are insular..., I don’t know if it’s a generation thing or the demographic of the school or what it is but they definitely need their eyes or their mind broadened a little bit... some of them, some kids here have never been to Melbourne (central Melbourne – this school is in an outer Melbourne suburb).

They have no idea outside the square that there’s poverty and people are starving and the death rate of children. They have no idea, the kids at our school. I don’t know about other areas but (our students) live a very sheltered life.

There’s huge potential for international thinking with the types of kids we’ve got here but....

In summary, there seemed to be a very strong perception of the program as being about the actual connection with the Indonesian children. At the outset of the program the ‘global’ element was what captured attention and excited the teachers’ interest. Active ‘global citizenship’ as a concept was envisaged as being primarily developed through the actual connection to the Indonesian young people. This was also true with regard to the teachers themselves who acknowledged that they did not have a clear understanding of their own global identity and knew virtually nothing about Indonesia. As a result, the teachers were also looking forward to some kind of learning around their own identities, their relationships to their students, and to learning about the Indonesian groups. In this way, the teachers were positioning themselves as learners and the outcomes they hoped for themselves were merged somewhat with the outcomes they hoped for their students:

I’d love to learn what life is like there. I mean, it’d be great to know.

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... it can engage, well it engages me so I’m hoping it will engage the students as well.