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Publications
Griffith University and the Department of the Environment, Sport & Territories, 1997
Margaret Calder
Flinders University
Australia
Roger Smith
Education Consultant
Melbourne
This workshop is one of the core modules in this series and provides an introduction to the nature, concerns and objectives of development education.
For the survival of the world and its people, teachers must do far more than just teach about global issues. We must find ways to change hearts and minds. This can be a response to reasoned argument and evidence or to experience where empathy will lead to commitment and action. Teachers hold the responsibility for educating their participants to work for future change that will help create a better world for all. Together we must work towards a more ecologically sustainable and socially just society, locally, nationally and globally.
The workshop shows that development education is not just about the economically poor world but is concerned with all countries, including the economically rich ones, particularly in relation to their role in an interdependent world.
This workshop seeks to enable participants to:
The workshop has six components:
An activity that allows participants to introduce themselves and explore their ideas on the meaning of development
This activity involves participants reading stimulus material followed by a group discussion.
A discussion of the history of the term 'Development Education', the present day focus and objectives
This activity involves group development of posters illustrating the links between different approaches to education and their shared global concerns.
An activity to assist participants' ability to incorporate a development education perspective into their classroom teaching.
Involves reflection on social justice, inequalities and their professional practice.
Overhead Transparency Masters
OHT 1: Overview of Mini-lecture
OHT 2: What is Development?
OHT 3: Definition of Development Education
OHT 4: Development Education Could Be
OHT 5: Four Education Approaches or One?
Resources
Resource 1: Chris and Kweku
Resource 2: Balance Sheet of Human Development - Developing Countries
Resource 3: Balance Sheet of Human Development - Industrial Countries
Resource 4: Objectives for Development Education
Resource 5: Examples of Development Education
Readings
Reading 1: What is Development Education?
Reading 2: The Hidden Curriculum and Development Education
Activity 4: Several photocopies of OHT 5, blank paper, envelopes, sheets of coloured paper, felt pens and paste.
Baird, B. (1994) The Arms Trade, The New Internationalist, No 261, November, pp. 18-19.
Brazier, C. (ed.) (1992) Development: A Guide to the Ruins, The New Internationalist, No 232, June (whole issue).
Calder, M. and Smith, R. (1991) A Better World for All: Development Education for the Classroom. Book 1 Teacher's Notes and Book 2 Student Activities, AGPS/AIDAB, Canberra.
Pike, G. and Selby, D. (1988) Global Teacher Global Learner, Hodder and Stoughton, London.
Rajendra, C. (1984) Songs for the Unsung, World Council of Churches, Risk Press, Geneva.
Swift, R. (ed.) (1995) Unmasked: The East Asian Economic Miracle, The New Internationalist, No 263, January (whole issue).
UNICEF (1995) State of the World's Children, Oxford University Press, London.
United National Development Programme (1997) Human Development Report 1997, UNDP, New York
This activity provides an opportunity for participants to meet each other and to discuss in groups of three their understanding of the term development as it applies to various themes.
Apart from a chance to introduce themselves, this activity gives participants confidence to speak and explore ideas. It also is a way of brainstorming prior to the mini-lecture which will further develop ideas of 'What is "development"?' The facilitator should move around acting as a listener, tuning in to some of the ideas of the participants so these can be used in the mini-lecture to emphasise the sound educational principle of starting with the knowledge and ideas of the group.
The facilitator can choose themes relevant to the particular group involved, to the local situation, or to what they wish to discuss later. For the first two triads the participants 'throw-in' many ideas and accept all suggestions, i.e. brainstorming.
The last triad enables each group to report back to the whole group at the end of or during the mini-lecture. The last group needs to discuss and negotiate to see if they can come up with a consensus opinion. There may be groups who cannot reach a consensus about the term 'development'. The opportunity to state this, and say why, is an important part of the process, as it allows the facilitator to expand on the idea that 'development' means many different things, depending on one's point of view, position in society, etc.
The June 1992 issue of New Internationalist, Development: A Guide to the Ruins, contains illustrative material the facilitator can use to reinforce concepts as they are raised (see Additional Reading).
This activity is a group discussion following the reading and questioning of stories, or other stimulus material. It provides an opportunity for participants to begin discussing the meaning and value of teaching with a development education perspective.
The emphasis in this activity is to get participants to discuss the various backgrounds of teachers and their students, what is meaningful to them, what influences them, what individuals see as the purpose of taking a development education perspective. This is a worthwhile exercise that should prompt discussion. Teachers and students often find it difficult to write questions rather than statements. Writing questions instead of immediately finding answers, stimulates us to think deeply, and in the discussion and questioning, the workshop members should find they discuss their own values in relation to development education and what it means. The final summing up by the facilitators should emphasise the dynamic nature of the term.
The mini-lecture should be developed from Reading 1 and Reading 2. Resources 2-4 and OHTs 1-5 may be used also.
Points to be discussed in the lecture are on OHT 1. Support materials for each point are:
In this activity small groups of participants, using given material, discuss and share ideas about development education. This creates an opportunity for participants to discuss particular education approaches that they may already be familiar with, and to show in diagrammatic form the links between them and their shared global concerns.
The facilitator needs to make photocopies of the diagram in OHT 5 for each small group. The diagram should be cut up into its five distinct parts : the globe and the four parks depicting each 'education'. These cut outs should be put into an envelope with three or four slips of blank paper the same size as the others. A sheet of coloured paper, felt pens and paste should be available for each group. OHT 5 can be used at the end.
Through arranging this material participants will be discussing the common concepts, organising ideas and major objectives of development education, environmental education and other educational thrusts. If they are encouraged to add further boxes they are likely to discuss language, race, gender, religion, family, etc. or a specific subject area they are interested in.
By allowing the participants to work through the concepts related to each approach given and devising concepts for new boxes it is hoped they will consider the five common concerns on the central globe of the many educational thrusts, and realise development education is not something new but a dynamic process and a perspective that is already in place in some schools.
The facilitator can draw out similarities and differences between the posters and the original OHT 5.
In this activity participants discuss different classroom activities and decide what it is that makes them examples of development education. It allows participants to link their understanding of development education to classrooms they have been in or read about and to curricula or subjects they teach.
The facilitator needs to make photocopies of Resource 5 for the group. Further examples can be typed up and added by the facilitator, especially ones relevant to their own country and the age-group the participants teach. Facilitators can make up the examples, or take ones from their own experience.
This activity should help participants see how teachers have incorporated a development education perspective into classroom teaching. It should also serve as a conclusion by linking all the material from the previous activities and the mini-lecture.
Mini-lecture
Development education is not just about teaching content. It involves the use of many experiential teaching methods that model and promote the values of cooperation and tolerance that underlie a better world for all. This means that the 'hidden curriculum' is a vital area to monitor and use positively.
Reading 2 provides a range of ideas upon which a mini-lecture on the hidden curriculum can be based. Facilitators should make a selection from this material to conclude the workshop in such a way that it leaves participants to reflect on their professional practice and act for the betterment of all.
Source: Calder, M. and Smith, R. (1991) A Better World for All: Development Education for the Classroom, AGPS/AIDAB, Canberra, p. 21.
Development is not only concerned with growth where more people enjoy economic or material well-being and the sharing of these benefits. To many people skyscrapers, highways, large-scale industries, hotels, supermarkets and hydro-electric schemes represent development. These are the physical manifestations of certain type of economic development where maximising profit is the driving force. Social development should start with the concept of the oneness of the world and the value of each individual rather than profit.
Development in human terms means social justice for all and encompasses political freedom. The process of development should enable all people to realise their potential social, cultural, political and economic.
Source: Calder, M. and Smith, R. (1991) A Better World for All: Development Education for the Classroom, AGPS/AIDAB, Canberra, p.17.
DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION IS A DYNAMIC PROCESS
It is about global concerns; recognising that we live in an interdependent world. It aims to develop an understanding of the interacting factors that cause poverty, injustice, inhumanity, conflict and environmental abuse in our own country and internationally.
It is about the powerful and the powerless for it is concerned with how things happen, who decides, who has power and who does not. It promotes inquiry into prejudice and discrimination, such as racism and sexism.
It develops critical awareness of our own and other societies and cultures. It is a search for alternative views, experiences and methods that acknowledge equality of people within and between nations. It recognises the diversity and complexity of approaches in our world.
It is about participation; developing the skills, values and attitudes that lead to commitment to responsible action for change towards the preservation and fair distribution of the earth's resources in order to create a more just society, locally and globally.
Source: Calder, M. and Smith, R. (1991) A Better World for All: Development Education for the Classroom, AGPS/AIDAB, Canberra, p. 21.
Development education could be
language and literature
environmental education
agricultural science
religious education
technical studies
outdoor education
modern languages
dance and drama
home economics
social studies
local studies
earth science
mathematics
photography
geography
economics
chemistry
biology
history
physics
music
craft
art
Source: Greig, S., Pike, G. and Selby, D. (1987). Earthrights: Education as if the Planet Really Mattered, WWF, London, 23-28.
Narrow focus
1. Problems of 'Third World' countries. (Teaching about development).
2. Implicit acceptance of Western view of development.
3. Solutions lie through aid.
4. Student involvement: charitable collections.
Broad focus
1. World development/interdependencies.
2. Non-Western perspectives given due emphasis.
3. Solutions lie in reforming economic/political arrangements within and between societies.
4. Student involvement: developing skills etc., for participation in decision-making processes. (Teaching for development)
Narrow focus
1. Teaching based on key international documents.
2. Emphasis on civil and political rights.
3. Implicit acceptance of Western view of rights.
4. Teaching about rights (history of rights, case studies etc.).
Broad focus
1. New rights, e.g. environmental rights also included.
2. Social and economic rights given equal emphasis.
3. Serious exploration of non-Wester perspectives.
4. Teaching for rights (i.e. developing skills) and in rights (i.e. democratic open classroom climate).
Narrow focus
1. Absence of war.
2. East-West conflict/disarmament.
3. Limited concept of peace.
4. Study/research skills in traditional classroom. (Teaching about peace).
Broad focus
1. Absence of war and injustice.
2. Disarming/dismantling oppressive structures globally.
3. Extended concept of peace including ecological balance.
4. Participatory skills within democratic classroom. (Teaching for and in peace).
Narrow focus
1. Local environment.
2. Traditional biological and geographical emphasis.
3. Implicit acceptance of Western perspective on the environment.
4. Developing caring interest in environment and practising study/research skills. (Teaching about the environment.)
Broad focus
1. Local/national/global/environmental interdependencies.
2. Exploring relationship between human behaviour and global ecosystems.
3. Serious exploration of non-Western perspectives on the environment.
4. Developing concerned awareness and participatory skills etc. (Teaching for the environment.)
Source: Calder, M. and Smith, R. (1991) A Better World for All: Development Education for the Classroom, AGPS/AIDAB, Canberra, p.9.
My name is Chris
My name is Chris. I am 10 years old. Our teacher gave us a story to read. It began 'My name is Kweku'. It was sad and it made me feel lonely. I wouldn't like to be like him, I feel sorry for Kweku, he has lived a hard life. I wish someone would help him soon because at nine he needs an education. If he had gone to school he could get a better job. I go to school. I will write my story.
My name is Chris I've got a house. My best fried is Keith and I go to Aldinga Primary School to learn. There's five of us in the family. I like playing on the computer on weekends or after 4.30. I've got $30 in my wallet. I get $2 every Friday.
My age is 10 and in Grade 5. My dad works at Nestles, and mum works around the house. I have over ten fluffy toys in my bedroom. I go to church usually on Sundays.
I play cricket and indoor games. I've got a pet called Monty he's only got three legs because he got run over by a motor bike and we took him to the vet to fix him up.
Mum and dad have two cars a job car and mums got her own. We haven't got a grandma any more.
We have got a big house and paddocks. I think we've got four paddocks. When I am sick I am looked after. I get food every day. I don't ever have to worry about running out of food I hardly ever be sick.
Keith and me and the rest of our class did a survey in maths to see what we had compared to Kweku. Me made a list of things to survey. We found that in the families that the twenty-two of us came from, we owned these things:
24 TVs
3 swimming pools
12 stereos
26 bikes
8 videos
13 trampolines
6 computers
3 pool tables
6 microwaves
53 transistors or Walkmen
10 dishwashers
24 pets
25 cars
1 horse
3 caravans
6 boats
and between the twenty-two of us we get $51.50 pocket money per week.
I showed our survey to Mum and asked her why we have so much and Kweku has so little. She didn't know all the reasons. At school we are going to find out more about why this happens and what we can do
Chris Age 10 Aldinga Primary School, Australia.
My name is Kweku
My name is Kweku. I am 9 years old. A lot of people call me a small boy, but I live alone. My work is that I sell chewing gum around the Orion Circle at cinema time. Plenty boys and girls come buy the 'PK' before they see cinema. I don't go to school. I don't go because I don't have money. My mother died before they born me. My father nobody know. Some woman give me milk when I am a little baby, now I am old so I work. I sleep in the far night at 2.00 am sometimes 3.00 am morning time. I have no sleeping house. I sleep at the lorry petrol station. I buy food they sell on road.
I want there to be no war and no children born like I am. I suffer plenty. You don't get soap, sugar and plenty plenty things. I want this year to bring house for us and water for village people to drink. Don't take photo of me. I don't want white man see me dirty.
Age 9, Accra, Ghana.
Adapted from New Internationalist, No. 76 , June 1979. No. 76, June 1979
Source: United Nations Development Programme (1993) Human Development Report 1993: Putting People at the Centre of Development, UNDP, New York.
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Average life expectancy is now 63 years - 17 years more than in 1960. In 26 developing countries, it is above 70 years. |
14 million children die every year before they reach the age of five. |
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Two thirds of the people have ready access to health services. Access to safe water has increased in the past 20 years by more than two thirds. Public expenditure on health as a proportion of GNP increased by nearly 50% in the past 30 years |
Nearly 1.5 billion people lack access to health services. 1.3 billion people still lack access to safe water. 2.3 billion people lack access to sanitation. In Sub-Saharan Africa, one adult in 40 is HIV-infected. |
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Daily calorie supply is now about 110% of the overall requirement (compared with 90% some 25 years ago). |
Over 100 million people were affected by famine in 1990. More than a quarter of the world's people do not get enough food, and nearly one billion go hungry. |
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The adult literacy rate has increased by more than one-third since 1970. Nearly three-quarters of children are enrolled in school. |
Over 300 million children are out of primary and secondary school. Nearly one billion adults are illiterate, nearly 600 million of them women. |
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More than 2% of GDP is spent on social security benefits. Employee earnings grew some 3% annually in the 1980s, twice the rate in the 1970s and greater than that in industrial countries |
1.2 billion people still barely survive - in absolute poverty. About half the people in Sub-Saharan Africa are below the poverty line. |
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The mortality rate of young children has been halved in the past 30 years. The immunization rate for one-year-old children has increased from one-quarter to more than three-quarters during the past 10 years. |
Nearly one million children in Sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV. Infant mortality figures in the poorest nations are 115 per 1000 live births. 180 million young children are still malnourished. |
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The male-female gaps in primary education have decreased by half in the past 20-30 years, and in literacy by one-third in the past 20 years. |
Females receive on average only half the higher education of males. Female representation in parliament is only 14% that of males. |
Source: United Nations Development Programme (1993) Human Development Report 1993: Putting People at the Centre of Development, UNDP, New York.
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Average life expectancy is 75 years. There is one doctor for every 460 people. Two thirds of the people are eligible for public health insurance and nearly three-quarters of the health bills are paid by public insurance. |
One in three adults smokes. Nearly five people in every 1000 are seriously injured in road accidents. The cost of in-patient care has increased by two thirds since 1980. Some 300,000 cases of AIDS have been reported to date. |
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The proportion of the population going on to university has increased from less than one-quarter in 1965 to more than one-third today. There are more than 80 scientists and technicians for every 1000 people. |
One-third of adults have not completed secondary education. For every 100 teachers, there are 97 soldiers. |
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Average income has increased three and half times in the past 30 years. Social security benefits average nearly 11% of GDP, and 1.3% of GDP is spent on labour market programmes. More than one-quarter of the labour force is unionized. |
In the OECD countries alone, an estimated 30 million people are unemployed, and one-third of them have been out of work for over two years. The rate of unemployment among youth is 13% and rising. The wealthiest 20% of the people receive on average seven times the income of the poorest 20% |
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At the secondary level, female school enrolment is higher than male. At the tertiary level, it is about equal - though about one-third less for science. Women's participation in the labour force was 44% of men's in 1960. Now it is 78%. |
Women's wages are still on average only two-thirds those of men, and their unemployment rate is consistently higher. Each year, one woman in 2000 is reported raped. |
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Nearly one person in two has a TV, one in three reads a newspaper and eight in ten visit a museum at least once a year. |
One in every 500 people is in jail. The average homicide rate is four per 100,000. The annual divorce rate for people over 25 is nearly 5%. |
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Since 1965, production has become six times less energy-intensive. Some 60% of people are served by water treatment facilities. Industrial and other countries have agreed to phase out major CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) by the year 2000. |
The greenhouse index is four times that of the developing world. 42 kilograms of air pollutants are emitted annually per 100 people. Nearly 10 metric tons of hazardous and special waste are generated annually per square kilometre. |
Source: Calder, M. and Smith, R. (1991) A Better World for All: Development Education for the Classroom, AGPS/AIDAB, Canberra, pp. 19-20.
Awareness of Self - Students should have an understanding of their place in a family, local community, region, nation and the world.
Other Cultures - Students should be aware of both the diversity and similarity of ideas and practices found in societies around the world, and how the ideas and ways of their own society might be viewed by others.
Awareness of Perspectives - Students should understand that particular viewpoints, which are not universally shared, do indeed affect decision-making and behaviour. They should be aware of how perspectives are shaped, and realise that it often happens unconsciously.
Inequalities Within and Between Regions - Students should know about the major inequalities of wealth and power in the world, both between and within countries. They should be aware of the efforts being made to reduce them through aid, trade, technology, disarmament and development etc.
Interdependence - Students should understand that things are connected in the ecological, economic, political and social environments. Individuals and communities are linked with, influenced by, and dependent upon others.
Change and Development - Students should be aware of the causes of change. They should have an understanding of how values and attitudes determine alternative approaches to development and shape possible futures.
Positive Self Image - Students should have a sense of their own worth as individuals and of the worth of their own family, social and cultural background.
Acceptance of and Respect for Others - Students should develop an appreciation of the worth of all people, have a willingness to seek out and learn from others whether from similar or different backgrounds.
Open Mindedness - Students should have a desire to find out more abut issues related to living in an interdependent world, a willingness to approach all issues with a critical, reflective and open mind, and a readiness to change their ideas as their understanding grows.
Empathy - Students should be willing to understand the feelings, viewpoints and actions of other, particularly those in situations different from their own.
Concern for Justice - Students should develop a love of justice, and a willingness to support the victims of injustice in their own and other societies.
Respect for Human Rights - Students should be committed to defending their own rights and the rights of others. They should be aware of the responsibilities such rights entail.
Commitment to Democracy - Students should value the principles of equity as the basis upon which relationships between individuals, groups and societies should be organised.
Inquiry - Students should know how to find and record information about world issues from publications of various kinds, from audio-visual materials and from interviewing people with special experience.
Critical Thinking - Students should be able to evaluate the quality, relevance and priority of information, to distinguish between fact and opinion, and to recognise perspectives, bias and the validity of sources.
Communication - Students should be able to explain their ideas in a variety of ways; in writing, discussion, in art and media forms, with many people, including those of other cultures.
Decision-making and Problem Solving - Students should be able to weigh up the relevance, validity and implications of alternative solutions. Their decisions should be clear and reasonable.
Social Skills - Students should develop the social skills necessary to work cooperatively, and express their views and feelings showing consideration of others.
Political Skills - Students should develop the ability to participate in formal and informal political decision-making at local, national and international levels in both formal and informal ways.
Willingness to be Involved - Students should be motivated to act upon their insights to redress challenges to human rights, justice and democracy.
Identifying Alternative Courses of Action - Students should know how to investigate actions already taken by others, listening, discussing, and reporting upon them, as well as drawing on their own ideas to identify possible alternatives.
Evaluating Likely Consequences - Students should be able to reflect upon actions to anticipate consequences and weigh up likely outcomes.
Personal Commitment - Students should have the desire to choose to take a particular course of action as an individual or member of a group or class.
Taking Appropriate Action - Students should know how to undertake action, from informative action such as presenting findings to a wider audience, to cooperative action which includes joining with community groups, petitioning and fund-raising.
Evaluating the Process and Effects of Action - Students should develop the ability to reflect upon actions that evolve from a school-based program. They should be able to evaluate their success and map future alternatives that can be taken by students or concerned community members.
Source: Classroom vignettes written by Margaret Calder, John Fien and Roger Smith
Library Education
It is after normal school hours. A group of students are assisting at a community centre where women and men who cannot read effectively are animatedly discussing a short newspaper report on the social effects of unemployment. Their teacher has adapted reading techniques developed in Latin America by Paolo Freire to the local situation and is using the everyday life experiences of the students in her class to develop both their reading and their social literacy skills.
Pre-school Group Work
The classroom is in a pre-school. The children are working on the floor in small groups. One group is assembling a large-piece jigsaw puzzle of the world but it is harder than it seems as all the continents are the same colour. The second group is learning the words of 'We are the World' to sing at the next Parents' Morning. A third group is using a UNICEF kit to construct four different West African buildings from printed cards.
The World in a Chocolate Bar
In this school, we find groups of ten year olds sitting at their desks. Each group has a chocolate bar and a small knife. Each student has a role: an African cocoa grower, a local merchant-middleman, an African government, a shipping company manager, a chocolate factory owner, a factory worker, the tax department, and a local shopkeeper. A large poster picture of a chocolate bar is on the chalkboard at the front of the room. The chocolate bar is divided into sections according to how much each person in the commodity chain earns. The teacher starts at the shopkeeper and, working backwards all the way to the cocoa grower, explains the share of the chocolate bar price each person is paid. As the teacher completes each explanation, the student with that role cuts off a proportionate piece of the group's chocolate bar and eats it. The cocoa growers in the groups are concerned at the very small piece of chocolate left for them! After this exercise, the teacher leads a class discussion on other examples of injustice in the world food system. She then gives each group a new chocolate bar with instructions to divide it between group members in a fairer manner.
World Food
A geography teacher has just completed a lesson in which all the class, boys and girls, had made some cakes. All the labels from the ingredient packets were kept for the next lesson during which the names and addresses of all the companies whose products were used were written down. Individual students then wrote to one company each to request information on the sources of that company's raw materials. Three weeks later, with most of the replies in, the class was able to trace the origin of all the ingredients and the routes by which they arrived in their town as a practical everyday example of the concept of interdependence.
Soup for Everyone
A Year 3 class is helping to make a pot of soup. With supervision and help from older students they are cutting the vegetables they have each brought to school, and are adding them to the prepared stock. At lunchtime the hot soup is shared with other classes. After lunch the students discuss how their contributions and cooperation made the soup special for everybody. This leads on to suggestions for other ways they can bring one or more items to school to cooperate in making something. A large poster-collage of Children of the World from magazine pictures is decided upon. This is to be made in the shape of the globe to be the centre of a display for United Nations Children's Day.
Source: Calder, M. and Smith, R. (1991) A Better World for All: Development Education for the Classroom, AGPS/AIDAB, Canberra, pp. 13-14.
Where Development Education Came From
Development education is a term first used in the 1960s by the United Nations. It grew out of the mounting concern of aid organisations, the churches and the United Nations over Third World poverty. The United Nations believed that if in the industrialised countries there was more education about life in and the needs of economically poorer countries, then there would be more political support for increasing the amount of aid given to them. During the 1960's, 70's and 80's the rich industrial countries of the West (eg Australia, USA, Japan) were known as the 'First World'. Countries in the communist block (eg USSR, Cuba, Poland, Hungary) were known as the 'Second World'. These two groups together became known as the developed world, or the North, while poor countries were often called developing or underdeveloped countries or the 'South' or the 'Third World' (eg India, Kenya, Fiji, China). Another term which emerged during this period was NIC, Newly Industrialising Country, (eg Singapore, Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil). The changes in Europe with the democratisation of Eastern Europe (eg Czechoslovakia), the formation of one Germany (ie the unification of West and East Germany) and the break-up of the former USSR has made the term 'Second World' practically obsolete except for a few countries (eg Cuba, North Korea).
There are always problems in labelling countries of blocks of countries. Anomalies occur because countries can clearly be included in two different groupings (eg China'Second World' or 'Third World'?)
In the late 1970's following the publication of the Brandt Report, North South: A Programme for Survival, the terms 'North' and 'South' came into vogue. Many found this division of the world to be difficult when some 'North' countries (eg Australia) were geographically in the southern hemisphere.
The education that emerged to teach about the economically poorer countries, or Third World, was called development education.
A Dynamic Term
Development education is changing its meaning in response to the needs, values and concerns of the times. Most significantly since the late 1970's development education is seen as being concerned with the nature and quality of development in both the so-called developed First and Second Worlds and the underdeveloped Third World. It stresses the interdependence and links between them, focusing on consumption as well as scarcity. It also addresses issues of who is powerful, who is powerless; the fairness of relationships; human rights; environmental abuse; and economic, social and political justice in all societies.
The meaning of the term development education evolved for several reasons:
It is clear now that the term 'development education' no longer just means teaching about the 'Third World'. The focus of development education is now more on:
It suggests, wherever possible, looking at development issues through the eyes and perspectives of people from the developing world or underprivileged sections of society. It raises awareness and encourages commitment. It empowers people to participate effectively in the development of a better world for all.
Source: Calder, M. and Smith, R. (1991) A Better World for All: Development Education for the Classroom, AGPS/AIDAB, Canberra, pp. 70-72. Adapted from material by Louise Crowe and Mary Hoban in the Social Justice Task Force Newsletter, No. 3, 1984, Victorian Ministry of Education.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are differently made,
Of people whose skin is a different shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've come to be taught before it's too late,
Before you're six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've come to be carefully taught
Quoted by Ben Chetkow-Yanov at a Conference
on Curriculum for International Understanding,
Canada, 1983.
Prejudice, intolerance, bias, racism and other values can be unconsciously reflected by teachers and textbooks 'unconscious' because these values are often largely unrecognised and so go unchallenged.
The expression 'the hidden curriculum' describes the assumptions that are implicit in all aspects of school life the attitudes, values, skills and knowledge which are never actually spelt out but are nevertheless effectively learned by the students.
The hidden curriculum may include attitudes to people of other cultures, religions and race; authority, the place of schools and schooling, and learning and teaching methods; the importance of particular subjects, sport, the community and of other countries; and gender roles. Students develop their attitudes through everyday experiences. Commonly held assumptions can then be transmitted as fact.
Teachers play a large part in the transmission of the values of the hidden curriculum, by teaching with materials and resources that may be biased or ethnocentric, by approving or disapproving of the behaviour of students, and by expecting different sorts of behaviour or responses from particular students. Stereotyping of students or others leads to the development of attitudes that limit the students' perceptions and defeats the aims of fostering understanding and tolerance.
Parents and visitors can rapidly sense the values of the school by the way in which students and teachers talk to each other, by displays in corridors and classrooms, by the students' style of movement around the buildings, by the welcoming or non-welcoming atmosphere. The hidden curriculum is also transmitted to parents through the tone of letters sent home, and through expectations or judgments about parents' behaviour.
Language can be fraught with bias, values, racism, sexism and a myriad of other things which do not encourage thought but simply form or entrench intolerant attitudes and beliefs. The acceptance of values, attitudes and expectations which are approved by the school is acquired without explicit teaching. It is truly 'hidden'.
For teachers, consideration of the hidden curriculum is vitally important. Development education is as much to do with language and methods, as content and skills. It requires sensitivity consistent with its objectives and contains dimensions that include relationships between all members of the school community.
The hidden curriculum in schools can be as powerful as the open or formal curriculum.
There is a continual need to evaluate the unconscious values implicit in the language we use, the structures in place in the classroom and school, and the resources with which we teach. Teachers and students alike must be alerted to this hidden curriculum so that they can challenge negative assumptions and values
The following ideas suggest questions that can be used to assess the way development issues are treated in the curriculum.
Stereotyping: Do we have a tendency to categorise and label people without much evidence? Are all people presented as alike? Are the particular attributes emphasised or sensationalised? Often notions about particular groups become common and fixed in the mind of the public and are frequently consolidated by the media. Terminology is a powerful transmitter of stereotypes. It is not only negative stereotyping that is of concern, but the very act of labelling and slotting into fixed conceptions that narrows our thinking about people from different countries or ethnic groups.
Ethnocentrism: Are other cultures and races being judged according to one's own standards in the belief that one's viewpoint is correct or best? It is so easy to be comfortable with the familiar, and we too easily become suspicious of anything different. It is difficult to recognise that we unconsciously affirm, praise, even glorify what is familiar to us, and ignore or negate that which we don't know so well. '
Primitive' vs 'Modern': Are things seen along a continuum from primitive to modern? Is society judged by the yardstick of technological development? Is 'progress' used to justify the destruction and dissolution of cultures and traditions centuries old?
Racism: Is there an implicit belief that physical or genetic differences influence intellectual ability, moral behaviour, and emotional responses, and that one's own physical and genetic characteristics are superior?
Sexism and the Marginalisation of Women: Is the role of women considered adequately and positively? Are certain role-models assumed? Are women only mentioned in classroom discussion or in the resources used in terms of domestic labour, passive bystander or not mentioned at all?
Omission and Neglect: Many resources ignore the enormous diversity of people. We are presented as homogenous groups, ignoring cultural, linguistic and ethnic divisions. Minority groups are often overlooked entirely. The dominant groups are therefore portrayed as representing a whole country.
The Whole Story? Much information is given to us out of context, ignoring cultural factors, spirituality and systems of meaning and belief. This produces negative feelings in students, who cannot comprehend or appreciate different modes of behaviour and lifestyles. If they cannot understand why people act in a certain way, they easily label theModd. Negative episodes given to us out of context give rise to hostility, which our society seems to find easier to reinforce rather than eradicate.
