Educating for the 21st Century: Perspectives, Policies and Practices from Around the World

483 Pages·2017·7.14 MB·English

by  Suzanne Choo

Suzanne Choo · Deb Sawch
Alison Villanueva · Ruth Vinz Editors
Educating
for the 21st
Century
Perspectives, Policies and Practices from
Around the World
Educating for the 21st Century
Suzanne Choo • Deb Sawch
Alison Villanueva • Ruth Vinz
Editors
Educating for the 21st
Century
Perspectives, Policies and Practices from
Around the World
Editors
Suzanne Choo Deb Sawch
National Institute of Education Teachers College
Nanyang Technological University Columbia University
Singapore, Singapore New York, USA
Alison Villanueva Ruth Vinz
Ridgefield Public Schools Teachers College
Connecticut, USA Columbia University
New York, USA
ISBN 978-981-10-1671-4 ISBN 978-981-10-1673-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1673-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955537
© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Springer Science+Business Media Singapore Pte Ltd.
Preface
The impetus to trade, explore and even conquer new worlds has existed for thou-
sands of years dating to the fifteenth century when Christopher Columbus discov-
ered the new world in the Americas and Vasco da Gama established a sea route from
Europe to the East. Sometime after the nineteenth century, the modern world econ-
omy developed and international trade, previously limited to products catered for
elite classes, now expanded to include basic goods such as wheat and textiles for the
masses. The world economy began to expand geographically to include more terri-
tories as the influence of the merchant capitalist class grew alongside stronger inter-
state relations. Today, the sense of international interaction, interconnectedness and
interchange, encapsulated in the term “globalization”, has intensified more than any
other century in human history. Indeed, the word “global” has become a cliché in
our twenty-first century landscape in which companies increasingly apply global
marketing strategies, financial institutions compete to provide global banking ser-
vices for their mobile clienteles, and education systems are compared globally on
international test surveys while universities continue developing enticing global
exchange programmes and partnerships with overseas institutions. These changes
are fuelled by a race among cities all over the world from Dubai to Shanghai and
Singapore to market themselves as global cities that are highly networked and that
are encouraged to maintain a cosmopolitan openness to immigrants and foreign
investors.
As the world becomes increasingly closer and flatter, it is also pulled apart by
rising instances of global terrorism, xenophobia, inequality among rich and poor
nations, and modern-day slavery. It is this complex and volatile landscape that has
generated growing interest among governments, policymakers and scholars con-
cerning how best to educate students with twenty-first century global capacities so
that they have the requisite skills and knowledge to compete in the global market-
place and at the same time imbibe cosmopolitan sensitivities towards multiple and
marginalized others in the world.
This edited volume provides insights into the different interpretations of twenty-
first century education and aims to merge theory and practice by including contribu-
tions from scholars as well as educators from schools and those who work with
v
vi Preface
schools. The volume contains three key parts, each with its own introduction. Part I.
“Perspectives: Mapping our Futures-in-the-making” centres on theorizations of the
contradictions, tensions and processes that shape the way twenty-first century edu-
cation discourses are constructed and articulated. Part II. “Policies: Constructing the
Future through Policy Making” focuses on how the envisioning of twenty-first cen-
tury education translates into policies and the tensions that emerge from top-down,
state sanctioned policies and bottom-up initiatives. Part III. “Practices: Enacting the
Future in Local Contexts” discusses on-the-ground initiatives that schools in vari-
ous countries enact to educate their students for the twenty-first century.
This edited volume is timely as governments and policymakers around the world
increasingly emphasize the need to adequately equip students with key knowledge
and skills for the twenty-first century. A range of international perspectives is pro-
vided, including insights into schools and education systems in countries such as
Australia, Canada, Cuba, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, Kuwait, Singapore and the
United States, among others. It is hoped that readers will be provoked to new ways
of thinking about twenty-first century education through the contributions by key
thinkers in the field of globalization and education as well as get a glimpse into the
ways twenty-first century education is interpreted and translated into specific policy
and pedagogical practices.
Singapore, Singapore Suzanne Choo
New York, USA Deb Sawch
Connecticut, USA Alison Villanueva
New York, USA Ruth Vinz
Acknowledgements
The editors would like to thank Randi Dickson for her help in editing this work and
co-authoring the introduction to Part I.
vii
Contents
Part I Perspectives: Mapping Our Futures-In-The-Making
1 Today’s Children, Tomorrow’s Creatives: Living, Learning
and Earning in the Conceptual Age ...................................................... 7
Erica McWilliam
2 Digitalizing Tradition: Staging Postcolonial Elite
School Identities in the Online Environment ........................................ 25
Cameron McCarthy, Koeli Moitra Goel, Brenda Nyandiko Sanya,
Heather Greenhalgh-Spencer, and Chunfeng Lin
3 “Players in the World”: Action for Intercultural Competence
in Classroom Pedagogy ........................................................................... 47
Ruth Reynolds, Kate Ferguson-Patrick, and Suzanne Macqueen
4 Deliberating Values for Global Citizenship: A Study
of Singapore’s Social Studies and Hong Kong’s
Liberal Studies Curricula....................................................................... 73
Theresa Alviar-Martin and Mark Baildon
5 Signature Pedagogies in Global Competence Education:
Understanding Quality Teaching Practice ............................................ 93
Veronica Boix Mansilla and Flossie SG Chua
6 Voices from the Field: What Can We Learn from Leaders
of Diverse Schools in Ontario Canada, Tensions
and Possibilities? ..................................................................................... 117
Ann E. Lopez
7 Education for a Better World: The Struggle for Social
Justice in the Twenty-First Century ...................................................... 131
Ian Davies
ix
x Contents
Part II Policies: Constructing the Future Through Policy Making
8 Global Leadership Training for High School Students
in Japan: Are Global Leadership Competencies
Trainable, Universal, and Measurable? ................................................ 153
Yuko Goto Butler and Masakazu Iino
9 Exploring Top-Down and Bottom-Up Cosmopolitan Traces
in Schools on the West Coast of the United States ............................... 171
Eleni Oikonomidoy and Rachel G. Salas
10 E xploring the Transformative Potential of a Global
Education Framework: A Case- Study of a School
District in the United States ................................................................... 187
Suzanne Choo, Deb Sawch, Alison Villanueva,
and Caroline Chan
11 F or Whom Is K-12 Education: A Critical Look
into Twenty-First Century Educational Policy
and Curriculum in the Philippines ........................................................ 207
Genejane Adarlo and Liz Jackson
12 P reparing Students for the Twenty-First Century:
A Snapshot of Singapore’s Approach .................................................... 225
Chew Leng Poon, Karen WL Lam, Melvin Chan,
Melvin Chng, Dennis Kwek, and Sean Tan
13 T owards Twenty-First Century Education: Success Factors,
Challenges, and the Renewal of Finnish Education ............................. 243
Jari Lavonen and Tiina Korhonen
14 I magining the Cosmopolitan Global Citizen? Parents’
Choice of International Schools in Kuwait ........................................... 265
Carol Reid and Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim
15 T owards Being a “Good Cuban”: Socialist Citizenship
Education in a Globalized Context ........................................................ 281
Denise Blum, Rosemary Smith, and J. Ruth Dawley-Carr
Part III Practices: Enacting the Future in Local Contexts
16 T eaching Global Citizenship Education with Empathy
Model and Experiential Learning: Case Study
of Action Research on Developing Empathy
in a Hong Kong Secondary School ........................................................ 303
Eric K.M. Chong
17 R eimagine Lakeshore: A School Division Change
Initiative for the Twenty-First Century ................................................ 327
Jacqueline Kirk and Michael Nantais
Contents xi
18 A Case Study of Curriculum Innovation for Global Capacities:
One Response to the Call of the Twenty-First Century ....................... 343
Clayton Massey
19 M EDIAtion: Flexible Literacy Terms, Communication
and “Viral” Learning in 9–12 Classrooms ............................................ 361
Natalie Davey
20 A Prototype Twenty-First Century Class:
A School-Wide Initiative to Engage the Digital Native ........................ 375
Hui Yong Tay
21 P reparing Students for a New Global Age: Perspectives
from a Pioneer ‘Future School’ in Singapore ....................................... 389
Wen Chee Chung, Hwee Joo Yeo, Ai Chin Tan,
Jasmine Tey, Melvyn Lim, and Chiew Weng Hon
22 P roblematizing ‘Global Citizenship’
in an International School ...................................................................... 405
Emily B. Clark and Glenn C. Savage
23 Being Open to the Other: K-12 Teachers’ Multimodal
Reflections on Hong Kong Curricula .................................................... 425
Zheng Zhang and Rachel Heydon
24 A New Wave of Learning in Finland: Get Started
with Innovation! ...................................................................................... 447
Tiina Korhonen and Jari Lavonen
Erratum ........................................................................................................... E1
About the Editors ............................................................................................ 469
About the Authors ........................................................................................... 473