“The pedagogy of development in the Global South”,
by Piotr Dzialak
Introduction: Another kind of teacher, and another kind of pedagogy for the development in the 21st Century. A teacher over cultural divisions, over social divisions, over economical divisions, over whatever divisions. Why it matters, and what teacher has to do with the development in Global South. Why is it then a problem that we know so much about Global South?
The workshop by Piotr Dzialak on “The pedagogy of development in the Global South” presented a new way of teaching and more specifically thinking about the Global South.
The worskhop introduced the participants to the BA in teaching at the Necessary Teacher Training College, DNS Tvind International School Center, Denmark, in cooperation with One World University. The main objective of this Bachelor is to give future teachers the experience of living in the real world. That world is their classroom and they are learning by doing. This is believed to be very important for future teachers, who will then talk about their own experiences to their students and as such be able to speak from the heart. The program consists of three years, each focusing on a particular practice field: year 1 at international level, year 2 at European level and year 3 at school level. To name but a few activities that are passing the review during the teaching program are a study travel to Africa, attending peace conference, activities related to climate change, ecological garden farming, teaching practice.
Following the presentation of the program, the participants looked more critical to their own education, and particularly were asked to be critical about the shortcomings in the existing educational system in Europe. Some gaps that were brought forward by participants are:
- Ability to think critically
- Communication skills
- Relationship management
In general, it was said that the existing educational system is extremely result oriented, looking at the perspective of knowledge acquisition with very limited attention/room for gaining social skills and attitudes build up through life-learning experiences.
The program at Tvind starts from a new approach, where everybody can teach others. And teachers in the program are ordinary people, talking from their own experience and background, sharing their own expertise. The role of the teacher shifts from knowledge transfer to connecting and coordinating information sharing between the people and the pupils.
In this regard, six common failures of current educational programs, that deliver school teachers, were presented:
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F# 1: Not knowing the world |
To address this shortcoming, teacher students are encouraged to go to the world and see it, experience it and personalize those experiences, bringing them back close to home. After attending the program, teacher students know what they are talking about as they have lived it themselves. |
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F# 2: Not knowing the audience (home) |
Often, teachers have very little knowledge of what the lives of their pupils look like, although this is crucial to being able to understand and connect with the pupils. |
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F# 3: Theory without practice |
Speaks for itself. |
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F# 4: Academic tyranny |
Currently, main focus is on knowledge from books, and ancient researchers/inventors, and only few sports and arts, as well as limited participation in school management from pupils, as compared to the new approach where the management is running the school together with the pupils. |
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F# 5: Alienation in our society |
There is an increasing voice for “ME ME ME”, forgetting about the focus on the group. This needs to be addressed by accepting others are different, respecting others as they are and prioritizing what is important rather than holding on to protectionist believes resulting in contrast between US and THEM as compared to WE. |
To conclude, the workshop finished with some common prejudices, to see where this group of participants stands and as such identify some failures in development, and gaps in our knowledge on the South. The statements can be found in the presentation from Piotr. You can find the questions in the comment below (by Dzialak)
All in all, views of participants are quite moderate and varicolored and the need to break down GENERAL prejudices to specific contexts was made clear and obvious by all and to all participants.
Despite the valuable skills and attitudes that are taught in this bachelor, it is not recognized within Bologna system, which is considered to be the last and final fuck-up, F# X, as the world needs teachers who actively get involved in the world they live in and tackle issues like alienation, global warming and community problems.
Bringing us to the jobs students do once they have finished their bachelor program. Most of them end up being teachers, seen as providing eduction to children aged 0 to 9 years old, similar to principal education. But others get involved in other jobs, such as developmental project management in Global South, working with the youngesters with special needs, managers of NGO’s working on Climate Change, Peace and other big issues…
The teacher training college works in cooperation with programs training development instructors - working in the Global South - based on the same pedagogical principals.
The program originates from a failure of the teaching system that was observed in 1968, regarding discipline in the classroom. A group of young teachers got on bus and traveled the world, especially to Asia, where they met among many ovmnipresent poverty and unjustice - something not known to the Europeans living in a big comfort. From this journey, they wrote investigative guidelines that founded the basis for this new type of educational approach.
And the bottom-line is: “go it, be it, live it, tell it (the story)” 
I had a good afternoon and enjoyed getting to know unfamiliar faces. Thank you.