World Citizen




	ESE502 : The Class : Pro-active Management : Preventive Discipline : World Citizen

Teacher as World Citizen

jkl “ Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me”

The role of Citizen of the World describes the teacher who has chosen to be one with humanity; . . . monarchs or beggars, needy or rich, wise or ignorant, unkempt, cunning, innocent; . . . brilliant, dyslexic, despondent, self assured. Succinctly, being without prejudice is part of the duty and role we will call upon ourselves. It is the journey we will give as a gift and set of skills to our students - the empathy for the human condition, the beauty of its created encapsulement, the vista opened when a child is taught to see the perspective of others.

Locked gates to the entrance of world citizen role:

chauvinism
fear
ignorance
lack of education
dislike of “different”
selfishness selfishness
prejudice
lack of vision
lack of contact
lack of values
greed self absorption
hatred
immaturity
provincialism
black and white reasoning
close-minded

So, a teacher might be uncomfortable with the role of world citizen because:

have been taught from childhood about the superiority of a race, religious persuasion, class, caste or belief system

uncertain of self so not safe to risk beyond the familiar

may be underdeveloped with respect to moral reasoning; unlike physical development, moral reasoning or philosophical development is not an automatic occurrence

modeling from others or pressure from a role model to conform to others’ ideas

government or political group refuse permission for equality of treatment

unrecognized norms or family expectations not yet explored

lack of exposure to study of humanities - art, religion, history, music, literature

Teacher as World Citizen

During a Halloween activity a student started to freak out. We were doing a hallway bulletin board of a graveyard. We were putting the student’s names on the headstones. This one student refused to participate. “My mom would not like this!” he kept repeating. “Why?” I asked, trying to calm him down. He just repeated what he had said. the graveyard went on the wall. That afternoon the boy’s mother came by. (Her son told her). She came to school to tell us that it was culturally taboo to put student names on headstones or even bring up the subject of death.

• • • • •

A student’s hair was accidentally cut in class. When the student got home she told her mother. The mother came to the school the moment the girl told her of the incident. We had to help the mother go through the trash and retrieve the hair. The mother said that she would destroy the hair at home. She explained to us that her people believe if someone else got the hair it could be used in a negative and evil ceremony to hurt her daughter.

• • • • •

When we first arrived on the reservation, the parents and students talked about the medicine man and his ceremonies. We thought this was dumb and part of mysticism and magical thinking. Our Anglo way of looking at the world almost caused us to miss out on the vital and valuable role a medicine man plays in the community and culture. Hospitals in the area work in conjunction with he medicine man. Many medicines we use today are from the Native American medicine man. The yucca plant is one example of a natural medicine. Imagine how wrong to would have been for us to cast a negative view of this much needed person to the students.

Beginning the Journey toward world citizenship:

This is a developmental process
The ability to progress in moral reasoning closely parallels cognitive ability
Ego development plays a part in the journey toward the role of world citizen, since feeling as others feel is a crucial initial step from selfishness to recognizing responsibility
It is not possible to see more than one stage above a current level of moral reasoning development, so those who are at stage two can neither reason nor appreciate reasoning or belief systems at level four
Those who would embrace the role must be able to live with paradox and ambivalence, seeing beyond black and white
Another step requires that the teacher to go beyond chauvinism for a group, a class, a superior view or role or nationalism; one cannot be a feminist, for it isolates, one cannot be superior, for it relegates others to inferior, one cannot be best, because it is a means of pointing to others as less
There must be a willingness to respect self and one’s judgments and to do so with a sense of humility and dignity
Travel to other countries, to inner city, or rural communities, to sub cultures assists in viewing different perspectives, particularly if travel includes time with people and among the family systems
Exposure to great literature and reading first person accounts with some depth (biography, autobiography) may assist in deeper perspectives and gaining insight into lives and feelings of others, other cultures, other views of the world
Asking parents and community members from sub cultures to share life experiences and perspectives may widen vistas for self and students
Movies of different countries and ideologies may be illustrative

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Reasoning
When people consider moral dilemmas, it is their reasoning that is important, not their final decision, according to Lawrence Kohlberg. He theorized that people progress through three levels which encompass six stages as they develop abilities of moral reasoning.

I. Preconventional Level -- Rules are set down by others.

Stage 1.

Stage 2.

II. Conventional Level - Individual adopts rules, and will sometimes subordinate own needs to those of the group. Expectations of family, group or nation seen as valuable in own right, regardless of immediate and obvious consequences.

Stage 3.

Stage 4.

III. Postconventional Level - People define own values in terms of ethical principles they have chosen to follow.

Stage 5.

Stage 6.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee -John Donne

I know I’m making progress when:

I have a sense of hope for the future and a belief in the goodness of people
I have a growing love for the beauty of life
I see paradox in the rules of life and in my own behaviors
I begin to recognize my inconsistency as a consistent happening, as normal, as worthy of tolerance
I enjoy a sense of humor about the foibles of self and others
I am able to put mistakes in perspective and go on
I find myself fulfilled in the sense of the present, in the current day
I recognize a maturing in my sense of belonging to more than a town, a culture, a religion - I embrace a place with humanity more than a safe niche of my own designing

Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks.
- Charlotte Bronte

General Steps in Helping Students Develop
the perspective of becoming a world citizen:

Honor students for who they are and what they are
Teach appreciation for roots and background - but as a launching place, not as a definition
Build trust with students, and show trust for them, their motives, their potential
Provide consistency and structure to optimize growth
Teach students an appropriate set of behaviors based on age appropriate typical moral reasoning:

Grades K-3
Grades 4-6
Grades 7-10
Grades 11+

Respect one another
Be Fair
Be Real
Give - self dedication

Teacher Power
Empowerment comes from the historic role. Teacher, guide, savant, all hold forth the recognition of calling students to personal greatness and expecting a sense of worth, dedication and dignity as portrayed by teacher. As is the case with all teaching roles and all teacher power, the first steps are the most difficult --- those which bring recognition of the onus or burden which comes with the power and authority vested in taking on the title Teacher. This is the greatest test of maturity, or the recognition of the call to teach, for it is to follow in the ample footfall of Buddha, Gandhi, Christ.

You should now:

Go back to Teaching Roles

E-mail J'Anne Ellsworth at Janne.Ellsworth@nau.edu