Global issues that matter
Social Sciences: Methods and Practices course | Discussion on Global issues with high school students | 3 hours field experience (includes preparation and reflection time)
Background
In an effort to understand what global issues are considered important by students, I chose to hold a discussion on the topic with five globally aware and sensitive students from the Puget Sound Community School. What ensued was an invigorating conversation covering global issues that mattered to the students individually and that we agreed upon as a group. Needless to say, the group battled in coming up with a short list of three global issues that they think stand atop the mountain of problems facing the world. I dare say, Obama's best aids couldn't come up with such a striking list in just an hour and a half of discussion
Method
In preparation for the discussion, I prepared a list of key questions to guide the discussion. These included:
What is a global issue?
What global issues are important to take note of? Which ones don't matter as much to you?
Prioritize your list of issues
Which one is at the top of your list? Why?
How might we shortlist the long list of issues before us?
How do we arrive at a short list of three?
The discussion itself followed this process:
The group agreed upon a definition of a 'global issue' as being an issue that occurring in a region of the world (not just a single country) but that has far-reaching impact to other regions.
Students looked through daily newspapers (print and online) to identify key issues that stood out to them. They were asked to pick out the ones they were naturally drawn to leaving out those that didn't quite interest them but to make note of those that didn't interest them.
Students shared the issues they picked out. It was fascinating to note that students called out leading news media as covering 'world events' not necessarily issues that mattered on a global scale. Some looked at the website www.globalissues.org to get a sense of issues of a more global nature affecting a vast majority of mankind.
Students shared their list of issues. A long list was drawn up. See list in Outcomes section below.
Each student shared her/his top issue.
The group worked on trimming the long list of issues down to those that they considered most important and pertinent. In this process, the eliminated what might seem like a critical global issue, that being the US Presidential Election. They did this because along the way, we came to realize that there is a distinction between a global phenomenon that becomes a factor in influencing a global issue and the actual issue. The US Presidential Election is a factor that will influence and even lead to the emergence of many global issues. It is however not an issue unto itself. This realization came about as students battled to trim the list of issues, considering carefully what makes an issue an issue.
Finally, the group battled long and hard to identify 3 issues that they considered most important. Arriving at this list was not easy. One student offered a metric for defining an issue as being critical – the question asked was whether the issue was important or urgent. The group agreed to focus on important issues, not necessarily the urgent ones. Even with this metric, there were long debates. See details in Learning section.
Learning
I was most struck by how globally aware and caring high school students can be of the world around themselves. Not only are they aware, they care that they remain aware and they take pride in the fact that they are aware. As some of them pointed out, being aware allows them to connect and communicate with most anyone — knowing global issues is a good conversation starter sometimes. Others also stated that it is just plain important to be aware and care. Most students attributed their level of awareness to their family, significant role models in their lives and their school environment.
I was also struck by how willing students were to consider the significance of an issue from multiple perspectives. When trying to arrive at the short list of three issues that we considered critical as a group, the students battled hard to determine if Global Poverty or the current Financial Crisis should go at the top of the list. Many arguments were made on how the two are related and considerations were made of which one causes the other. It was invigorating to hear the depth to which students considered the issues.
I found that the most effective way to lead the discussion was by posing pertinent questions to the students at various points. I chose to offer little perspective of my own (though I can be highly opinionated on the topic) on the topic. My hope was to allow as much of original thought as possible to come forth from students.
I chose to start the discussion by having students look at real data (current news media) rather than having them rely on recollections and ideas. This I believe made for more real discussions based on the real data. There was however one pitfall to this approach. Students left out issues that they considered important but didn't see covered in the news that was on hand.
In closing the discussion, I found it was most prudent to not push students to close in on a single list of top three issues. The point of this discussion was to engage in a meaningful discussion on global issues with the outcome serving simply as a guide.
Outcomes
The following were some of the issues discussed —
List of issues from student survey of current news media:
Financial crisis
US Presidential Election
Middle East
Terrorism
Tibet and China
Congo and Rwanda
Poverty
Malaria
HIV/Aids
Big business
Iceland bankruptcy
Corrupt Mexican officials
Fighting in Pakistan
Global warming
Top issue from each student: There were two issues that came to the top —
Financial Crisis (both boys in the group chose this as their top issue)
US Presidential Election (all three girls in the group chose this as their top issue)
Top 3 issues from the group:
The group couldn't agree on a single list of top 3 issues, so they came up with two lists:
List A
1. Financial crisis
2. Global Warming
3. Poverty
List B
1. Global Warming
2. Poverty
3. Financial Crisis