GCE: instructions for use

In the latest years this usual intergenerational divergence has surely deepened more and more and teachers – who are always in touch with young people and work with them – should have the reasons well clarified.

The contribution of GCE in the choice of thematic strands to give vertical coherence to the curriculum.

Curriculum design is a fundamental aspect of the teacher's professionalism. How to design a relevant curriculum?

There is an enormous variety of people and cultures in the world. Even the tiny country of the Netherlands has a wide diversity. Whether you teach in a village or a city, or in the inner city or the suburbs, your students come into contact with that cultural diversity on a daily basis. You can pay attention to that diversity in class; in fact, that is an excellent way to include global citizenship in your lessons. But where can you find inspiration? Are there any good examples available?

You want to start teaching global citizenship. You could take advantage of materials that are already available instead of developing them yourself. That would save you time, and there are plenty of options for a wide variety of ages, levels and subjects. However, you could also decide to develop a lesson plan yourself. This handbook has some suggestions to help you on your way.

The Netherlands is an internationally oriented country, and that is mirrored in our education system. Almost every school pays at least some attention to global citizenship, but they rarely do so in a systematic fashion. Global citizenship is usually introduced through specific projects and the link to the rest of the curriculum is not consistently emphasised. How can schools reinforce the attention paid to global citizenship?

Although students generally enjoy participating in project activities, what do they retain of such an episodic experience?

What am I learning from COVID-19 and especially how am I learning it? Through which paths and tools are our minds reading what is happening and how can we connect these paths with those forms of knowledge organization that are school subject disciplines?