Developing a Global Studies curriculum necessitates on-going changes, even if general standards based on broad models are mandated in the course of study. World situations change from year to year, causing some global issues to become obsolete and replaced with new trends based on new paradigms. The Argentine goal of incorporating the Falklands, for example, has been exacerbated by the possibility of oil deposits in the territorial waters of the British affiliated island community. Will the current British government react in the same way Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did in 1982?
Similarly, a popular expression among students seeking an activist cause in the mid 1990s was “Save Tibet.” Today, however, the Chinese government has a firmer hold on the Himalayan province than ever before and is encouraging the migration of Han Chinese into Tibet to diffuse nationalistic and ethnic identities. Global issues change dramatically, often within months. A Global Studies curriculum must be flexible enough to deal with on-going changes in a post-modern, unipolar world.
Global Studies is not a Study in Current Events
While a regular knowledge of current events is essential in understanding a changing world, these changes mean nothing without a clear understanding of ethnic identities, the emerging role of religion in what Samuel Huntington calls “intercivilizational relations,” [The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon & Schuster, 1996] and the failure of Western powers to promote a global “one-size-fits-all” democratic liberalism.
Students in a Global Studies program must understand the ramifications of moving from a bipolar world, i.e., the Cold War, to a post-Soviet world community that has unleashed ethnic identities longing to connect with long suppressed national histories and traditions. Along with this, emerging global issues tied to global trade and commercial patterns, population migration (immigration), natural resources, climate control, and a host of other inter-dependent issues become important.
In Brazil, for example, the cultivation of sugar cane may produce large profits in the alternative fuels industry, but the human toll on workers, virtually treated as slaves, as well as the cost to the rain forest that must be destroyed as the industry expands creates new models of global awareness and response. Students researching this – as well as similar global situations, may incorporate the slow demise of human rights considerations, most notably in the United States.
Connecting to the World Community
Beyond the commercial pursuits of global corporations, citizens of the West, especially Americans, are connecting to global communities in a variety of ways, although not always on equal terms. Huntington, for example, refers to “Western arrogance.” The example of medical tourism demonstrates this connectedness. For some time, Americans needing organ transplants have traveled to Beijing in order to receive life-saving organs at a far more affordable cost than in the United States yet are stigmatized for doing so. Some U.S. physicians prefer not to treat post-op patients that have been to China for these operations.
Yet at the same time, Americans are traveling to Costa Rica for surgical and dental procedures, often with the blessing of their physicians. Because the costs are generally lower, even health care providers are open to covering Costa Rican medical tourism in order to reduce costs. Students in a Global Studies course may be challenged to construct a compare and contrast model of medical tourism that can include other similar destinations such as Bangkok and Singapore.
The Core of Global Studies is Contemporary Events
Will Greece eventually default on its national debt and implode the Euro Zone? Can China sustain impressive economic growth? Global Studies teachers must facilitate analysis of current global events and trends. Toward that end, students must be given tools to research. The Economist, arguably the best weekly news magazine, is available on many education data bases as an E-Journal. Students can read, in English, hundreds of international newspapers on-line at kidon.com. Any successful Global Studies curriculum must be rooted in an understanding of contemporary events, and their interaction with changing patterns of global civilizations.
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