IMPORTANCE OF COLLABORATIONS AMONGST EDUCATORS
What if students worked in partnership with the community to address SDGs through real projects?
What if they: Started up-cycled fashion brands to generate less waste; Started movements to clean their local beaches; Co-designed old worn-down spaces to new sustainable environments; or even Co-constructed green, Eco-friendly spaces to help restore biodiversity.The thing is all around the world, they are already doing it.
These community-based projects are all REAL case studies from innovative programs that are moving from talk to action.
What if in doing this, all educators would break the barriers of collaboration and bring their learners together to experience the process of building and accomplishing fantastic projects like the ones described above?
So these projects would cease to have the identity of an individual educator / school driver but it would have the identity of young people aged under 18 who identify as Global Citizens doing spectacular exploits within their communities.
It is worth noting that this age group has been left out of public conversations as likely contributors. For centuries, they have been regarded as receivers. What if, just what if, we give them the rarely given space to express their ideas about world moving topics. And also give them the tools, direction and confidence to take action!
When we talk of educators often times it is thought to refer to professional trainers.
An educator is a person who provides instruction or education. An educator is usually seen as a mentor, instructor, or trainer. That is to say, an educator does not merely teach specific facts about an academic subject; an educator also instructs students' intellectual, moral, and social growth. Education transcends the classroom. If we are being realistic, anyone can be an educator! An elder sibling guiding a younger one to navigate something they have experience in. A parent guiding their child(ren), peers, the situations and the lists go on …
Therefore, locking the word educator as being synonymous to teacher only, is misguiding!
I digress, my point is that there should be lots of encouragement towards educator collaboration.
Effective global collaborators transcend time and space to connect, learn and create. The connected classroom is one that ‘…connects and engages with multiple audiences, resources and tools to create authentic, collaborative learning outcomes’
For the 21st Century Learning, Global collaboration is key and is one of the major reasons for using mobile and ubiquitous digital technologies. This kind of collaboration supports global awareness and competence and intercultural understanding. This is the much-needed recipe to change the world!
Global collaboration supports:
One, Glocalization which is the culture of accepting differences and applying them to the local context. The goal of glocalization is not for one culture to emerge but to find differences as well as commonalities.
Two, International mindedness and cultural awareness where Intercultural differences become intercultural understandings and break down stereotypes, cultural superiority and socioeconomic dominance.
Three, Global competency is enhanced. The cross-cultural skills and understanding needed to communicate outside one’s environment and to act on issues of regional and global significance are honed.
Four, better Cultural awareness is adopted making sure that working with others in the world provides new understandings.
This is the precisely what we require to meet the 17 Global Goals. Where they are regarded not as an agenda for the elite, but a lifestyle to be adopted by everyone leaving no one behind while engaging each other to ensure we build the world we want to see.
The concept and practice of global collaboration in the classroom has changed since the development of the Internet and got even more elaborate since the COVID-19 period.
In order for teachers to realize the benefits of collaboration, however, they must work around the common issues that prevent them from working with others. One such hindrance is time. In a survey, it was found that only 31% of teachers have enough time to collaborate with teachers. Moreover, 4% said that they never met with other teachers to discuss instructional practice. On the other hand, 43% said that they met with other teachers weekly or more often.
How can we change this?
By taking a learner-centric approach to education. And also adopting an education is fun mindset where play and entertainment is part of education experience thus creating strong edutainment programs such as what we have here at Kikao Cultures.
The purpose of international collaboration is not to replace the educational systems already in place in countries. Rather, its purpose is to allow parents, teachers, students and administrators to compare, exchange and collaborate for effective systems.
Let’s connect more!!