Educating Citizens for Global Awareness

What is global citizenship? Is it primarily a matter of economics? How can we protect the Earth as our home and that of future generations? What sort of diversity should we try to preserve, and can we encourage unity while we maintain diversity? What role should peace education play in preserving global citizenship? These are the key questions addressed in Nel Noddings’ introduction to Educating Citizens for Global Awareness. The far-reaching chapters of this timely volume open address an important conversation that educators are having we prepare young people for a new kind of citizenship. As a student at Teachers College I first encountered Noddings' writings on continuity and caring as core values in education. Please remember this easy aliterative phrase...

The Earth Charter in 33 languages

The Earth Charter Initiative is seeking to develop a world wide base of support for the Earth Charter. The Initiative is promoting the endorsement, dissemination, implementation and formal and non-formal educational use of the Earth Charter by individuals and organizations in all sectors of society. Endorsement of the document by individuals and groups in civil society and by businesses and governments builds support for environmental protection and development of a just, sustainable, and peaceful world. It also helps to advance the effort to obtain the endorsement of the Earth Charter by the United Nations during its Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014.

100 Years of Big Brothers Big Sisters

The Big Brothers Big Sisters timeline documents a century of commitment to mentoring. Despite a large and growing infrastructure, they also offer financial transparency.

Child Domestics: The World's Invisible Workers

According to Human Rights Watch, Child domestic workers are nearly invisible among child laborers. They work alone in individual households, hidden from public scrutiny, their lives controlled by their employers. Child domestics, nearly all girls, work long hours for little or no pay. Many have no opportunity to go to school, or are forced to drop out because of the demands of their job. They are subject to verbal and physical abuse, and particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse. They may be fired for small infractions, losing not only their jobs, but their place of residence as well. Read Restavec, the biography of Jean-Robert Cadet, a stark portrait of domestic child slavery(yet a tale for every current slave to know there is darkness before the dawn).

Peer Mentoring? Conflict resolution in the office...

Peer coaching is “a confidential process through which two or more professional colleagues work together to review current practices; expand, refine, and build new skills; share ideas; teach one another; conduct classroom research; solve problems in the workplace”

from Slater, C.L. and Simmons, D.L., “The design and implementation of a Peer Coaching program.” American Secondary Education, v.29, n.3 [Spring 2001], 67-76.

UMass Amherst Libraries put theory into action. Kudos to Lori Mestre.

Art in the Hallway: Unequal Treatment

This exhibit, the work of the students from Yale School of Medicine's Student National Medical Association (SNMA), Boricua-Latino Health Organization (BLHO), and the Social Medicine Study Group (SMSG) seeks to highlight questions that arise from the 2002 Institute of Medicine report Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care : Does race, and race alone, impact how healthcare is delivered to certain populations? Are biases on behalf of health care providers in part responsible for these disparaging outcome results? Read this online at no charge (and ask your local library to buy a print copy).

Better World Campaign

The Better World Campaign is a bi-partisan, non-profit national education and outreach effort dedicated to enhancing the awareness of and appreciation for the vital role the United Nations plays around the world. It is a project of the Better World Fund, which was created with initial support from businessman and philanthropist R.E. Turner as part of his historic $1 billion gift to support UN causes. Before you allow your inherent cynicism about UN ineffectuality to wash over your consciousness, reflect on the the most popular myths and realities about the UN.

Start with Youth: VOV

Victory Over Violence (VOV) is a youth-sponsored initiative to help young people identify and counteract the root causes of violence in their lives and in their communities. VOV outreach programs began in 1999 as a response to growing concerns over the rise in youth-related violence. Despite the trumpeting of modest statistical decline in violent crimes and victimization, the reality is that in 2003 persons age 12 to 24 sustained violent victimization at rates higher than individuals of all other ages.

The Quiet Storm: domestic Violence

The Quiet Storm Project provides a domestic violence curriculum to schools and organizations. Produced by the Central Minnesota Task Force On Battered Women, who operate Anna Marie's Shelter for battered women and their children .