- June 16th, 2011
Developing Global Citizens through Visual Arts Exhibition – Scottish Parliament, 21 – 24 June 2011
- kmayer
- Comments: noneTags: news, visual arts
As part of a national, comprehensive programme of support for schools and pre-schools, the Developing Global Citizens team at Learning and Teaching Scotland seeks to help practitioners embed Education for Citizenship, Sustainable Development Education and International Education within Curriculum for Excellence. This encompasses contemporary issues, promotes critical thinking and provides contexts for learning that are relevant and challenging to young people.
Artistic impression is an inclusive and powerful means for depicting our rapidly changing world and is a rich and creative vehicle for young people to explore and express their social and emotional literacy. Through art, learners can illustrate their own inner thoughts and feelings. It is a valuable means of personal communication as learners engage in the investigation of their own identity, cultural values and norms in the context of the wider world.
The Developing Global Citizens team worked with schools in six local authorities representing a wide geographical spread: Orkney; Argyll & Bute; Dundee City; Stirling; East Renfrewshire; Dumfries & Galloway to develop innovative approaches to embedding global issues in the expressive arts curriculum. This involved 22 different schools and hundreds of learners across the 3-18 spectrum, including young people with special educational needs. Through the resulting visual art work, much of which was the result of collaboration across various subject areas or across a whole school or schools, learners ably illustrated their own thoughts and feelings about global issues which concerned them such as identity, prejudice, the universal rights of children, human rights, global interdependence and the environment. Elements of this outstanding art work have been on display, to great acclaim, at various global citizenship educational events across the country, including the Scottish Learning Festival.
This final showcase gallery at Parliament brings the energy of ‘learner voice’ to the national seat of political power in Scotland in an innovative and creative format. It clearly reflects the professional expertise and passion of Scotland’s educators who have inspired learners by engaging them both collaboratively and as individuals in relevant global issues. They have unleashed the learners’ gift of human imagination and capacity for independent, divergent thinking. In doing so they have helped learners develop their critical literacy as responsible global citizens who knowledgeably embrace the challenges of the present, and are prepared for the challenges of the future - socially culturally and politically.
Categories CPD, citizenship, curriculum areas, expressive arts
Find us on