Global Issues

"it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
What did you do while the planet was plundered?
What did you do when the earth was unraveling?"

-Drew Dellinger (poet/activist and former Woolman Semester Commencement Speaker)

At it's core, Global Issues is a class inspired by what many activists, academics, scientists, spiritual leaders, and environmentalists are calling, "The Great Turning". The Great Turning is an idea and a social movement that collectively recognizes that we are at a time of unprecedented despair regarding the future of our planet. There is no denying that nearly all of our major life sustaining systems are in decline and the effects are becoming more tangible by the day. Consequentially, we are also at a time when caring about the world can be heartbreaking and learning about the environmental and social crises is overwhelming to the point that many people feel completely disempowered to affect change.

In this class, we are not going to shirk away from examining those hard realities. Clearly, it is essential to see what patterns, structures, and worldviews got us here, but at the same time we are going to recognize that another world is possible. We are going to study alternative systems, creative solutions, hardworking organizations, and simple ordinary people who are leading the way towards creating the world that we want. On top of that, we are going to explore a variety of tools that are being used to tackle both the symptoms and the roots of the problems that we are facing.

"We are here to hospice the old, resistant, dying structures, while catalyzing and midwifing the new, Earth-honoring systems, structures, ways of seeing and ways of being." -Joanna Macy

The class puts a heavy emphasis on the notion that a healthy democracy necessitates more than voting every four years. In order for us to create the world that we want to live in, we need to step up and get involved. That doesn’t mean that you have to be Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi and dedicate every waking moment to a cause. What it does mean is that everyone of us has unique talents that can be used towards creating joyful, hilarious, creative, and effective change.

The following are the over-arching goals of the class:

To explore our roles and responsibilities as U.S. and Global Citizens.
Gain an understanding of the interconnectedness of Global Issues.
To understand the relationship between the local and the global.
To identify root causes of international and local problems.
Introduction to the benefits and pitfalls of globalization.
To develop critical thinking, media literacy, research, and presentation skills.
Identify ways in which our lives and our daily choices are connected to the quality of life for those in other countries.
To explore the concepts of equality, justice, dignity, and security through international documents (such as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and The Earth Charter).
Be introduced to and envision possibilities and forms of activism/civic engagement, as well as existing peacebuilding organizations.
Create an open and engaging learning community where we are all teachers and learners.

Global Issues will also be activity-based with the use of role plays, simulations, and small to large group discussions. Guest speakers and opportunities to attend related lectures and workshops will be employed to give students the opportunity to interact with frontline activists-both local and global. The methods of facilitation will be consistent with the principles that it wishes to encourage: holism, dialogue, values formation, reflection, and participation.

Each semester, the teacher leads a trip to Agua Prieta, Mexico. Our trip to Mexico is a rare and impressive opportunity to make an in-depth case study of immigration issues and the effects of globalization. Throughout the week-long adventure, students will be amazed at the way in which the topics they studied in the classroom (in all three core classes, really!) take shape in front of their eyes. This Great Turning concept will be very apparent even on the trip as we begin the week with tours of a Maquiladora Factory, as well as a Border Patrol Station and finish the week at a community permaculture garden and fair-trade coffee roaster. After we return to campus, many students say the trip was the most important week of their lives.

The semester long project for this class is called, "Speak Truth to Power", where students will thoroughly examine a global issue through a Human Rights lens. In class, we will spend significant time examining The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and exploring the document’s potential, the challenges, the theories, and some related case studies. Next, the students will be introduced to several contemporary Human Rights Defenders and will subsequently choose a defender, a specific human right, and a Human Rights based conflict to research further. They will be employing college level research skills, in addition to an international conflict resolution tool utilized by experts in the peacebuilding field.

The final step in the process is for the students to become human rights defenders, too! These projects have been quite diverse and exciting.

Actions in the past have included:

Designing and printing T-Shirts: "No Farmers, No Food" and donating the money from sales to a agricultural policy institute
Creating a presentation about torture in Guantanamo to show at a home high school
Designing beautiful "Transgender Remembrance Day" posters with support group information on them to hang around town

Readings for the class will include authors such as: Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, John Robbins, David Korten, Joanna Macy, Derrick Jensen, and more!

"There is another superpower here on Earth that is an unnamed movement... far different and bigger and more unique than anything we have ever seen...non-violent...grassroots...no central ideology...The very word 'movement' is too small to describe it. No one started this worldview, no one is in charge of it..it is global, classless, unquenchable and tireless...arising spontaneously from different economic sectors, cultures, regions and cohorts...growing and spreading worldwide..This is fundamentally a civil rights movement, a human rights movement; this is a democracy movement; it is the coming world." -Paul Hawken