Global Citizens Need a School Without Walls
“I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world." ― Socrates
That has never been more true than today. When we talk about ‘global citizenship’, we are referring to the idea that we all live on Earth, whatever our background, culture or geography. And this global citizenship comes with both rights and responsibilities, as does any form of citizenship. My actions, sitting at my desk at the southern point of Africa, have an obvious effect on the people in my house. But they also impact people all around the globe, and thanks to an ever-changing and innovative world, our global connectivity and impact seem to be getting more and more significant.
I’m passionate about helping young people become the best version of themselves. It’s one of the reasons why I went into education. Part of equipping our young people today is helping them to understand their rights and responsibilities when it comes to global citizenship. That’s why schools today have to be more thoughtful than ever about how we are preparing our learners to live in a world where you can, for example, eat food that was grown on the other side of the world. Or more importantly, how to live in a world where they will interact with people from a hundred different cultures, pick up a career that maybe doesn’t yet exist, and many other realities that the generations before us would have found …weird, not to mention difficult to navigate.
So what should schools be doing? Well, like I already said in the title: they need a school without walls. It starts with our teachers having a good understanding of how the world works economically, historically, technologically, politically, and many other ‘ally’s. We need to be leveraging opportunities from around the world when it comes to resources and teaching methodologies. We should be expanding horizons, sharing perspectives and fighting prejudices. We must shine a spotlight on soft skills, and we should be asking our learners to engage with each other and academic content in the same way they will one day as adults.
It’s natural for us as an online school to operate as a ‘school without walls’. You see, because we don’t have any walls literally, the figurative ones don’t seem so big. We enjoy connecting with people from all over the world. Our learners come from all walks of life too. We love the fact that our learners are engaging on a wide range of excellent academic platforms, using tools that are going to be practically useful for them in the real world of work. And you know that we are passionate about soft skills at Koa! Being a global citizen makes skills like creativity, communication, collaboration and empathy more important than ever before.
It doesn’t matter whether you are connecting with someone in your own house or halfway around the world. We are always contributing to those around us, shaping the world that we live in for better or worse. Our job as educators and parents is to help our young people be thoughtful and wise when it comes to how they upskill themselves and contribute to others as global citizens.
