Resource+Game+Memo

Thomas Sgueglia Good Teaching Practice for Global Issues Lessons Curriculum Review The International Schools Association designed the “Good Teaching Practice for Global Issues Lessons” module. The International Schools Association, or ISA, attempts to teach children core values such as “peace, freedom, equality, tolerance and the celebration of both diversity and similarity.” The objectives of the ISA are to promote its core values throughout education worldwide. Equality is most closely related to the “Good Teaching Practices for Global Issues Lessons” module. It works by dividing the class into different groups which represent different trading companies or nations. The students are given office supplies that would be needed to make a simple paper chain as well as fake currency. The concept of inequality is introduced by varying the amount of “resources” that each group gets. Some groups may have an abundance of paper but no way to cut and glue them back together. The groups can either work together and trade their resources or try and out-play each other. The teacher can choose to vary the playing field by making different size and color paper chains cost more. This module is designed to get young students to start thinking about the distribution of wealth, technology and labor. Not only is this lesson a nice gateway into a curriculum on global trade or the history behind the Industrial Revolution, it can be a similar lesson to Mrs. Elliot’s discrimination lesson in //A Class Divided//. Students in groups without many resources will enjoy this activity much less than the students that are given an abundance of resources. If the groups then are switched up like Mrs. Elliot did with her students, it will give everyone a chance to experience what it is like to be on the undervalued side of society. An exercise like this would work best on middle school students because they will be able to understand key concepts like the value of money and equality a little more than elementary students. The module could be redesigned for high school students but it seems too basic for that level of learning. The literacy goals of the EcoEd Research Group advocates are a bit different than that the ISA. The EcoEdu Research Group attempts to convey complex ideas about sustainability and society’s interation with the environment while the ISA promotes core moral values. This module is a good way to get students to develop initial ideas about sustainability as well as global trade issues. If all the groups work together, they will spread the resources out evenly and all groups will profit. However, if they work solely for the benefit of themselves, they will end up wasting some of their resources that other groups would have benefited from using. This module could be changed slightly with a greater focus on sustainability and less on the fake currency. By having the teacher award points for the most sustainable group instead of buying the paper chains, the module would address more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Research Group advocates.

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