INDUSTRIA CULTURAL Y CREATIVA DEL TEATRO EN EL MUNDO

No programs were found in the literatures that are directly comparable to Global Connections.

However, some of the individual elements of Global Connections are replicated in other school-based programs. For example, there are a number of successful²⁹ programs undertaken in Australia with support from outside organisations which adopt similar student-led pedagogical approaches as Global Connections (see, for example, the Kids Teaching Kids programs promoted by Australia Post (KTK, 2011) and similar programs run by the West Australian NGO Firestarter ( Firestarter, 2010)). In programs like these teachers play a crucial support role by scaffolding the learning of students but a major emphasis in the programs is creating an opportunity for the students to take the initiative with regard to their learning.

There are also many programs in schools which have been developed to address global citizenship related ideals. Many of these programs use curriculum resources that have been developed by development NGOs for use in schools (e.g. Amnesty, Oxfam, World Vision cited in AusAID, 2006).

However, these programs are designed for teaching ‘about’ global education issues. The resources are typically adult generated and rely on data supplied from developing countries. Such resources are designed for use by classroom teachers in the course of their ‘normal’ practice. As a result, they fall short of the innovative approach of Global Connections, which offers opportunities for students to generate their own learning, to engage directly with their peers in Indonesia, and to engage in ways that are action-oriented. Global Connections is designed to engage students actively in global citizenship and as such is not directly comparable to programs designed to teach ‘about’ similar themes. Students in first world countries who simply study ‘issues’ tend to be disengaged from the reality of third world existence. The critical linkage in creating deep learning that might move learners towards a desire for social change seems to be best achieved through experiential linkages in pedagogy and programs (Boulding, 1990).

29 Success is judged here by the longevity and the reach of such programs because there have not yet been direct empirical studies published. KTK for example reached over 20,000 kids in 2011. Although empirical studies have not been published they have been initiated and I have attended presentations of interim reports of empirical work in progress.

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There are also many programs in schools that create links to children in developing countries (for example programs run by the Oaktree Foundation³⁰ previously mentioned). These programs allow for the authentic experiential connection with young people that is indicated above as being a

prerequisite for deep learning and in many ways are comparable to Global Connections. However, possible comparison between Global Connections and these programs is limited because several key elements of Global Connections are not replicated in these programs and these elements act strongly to differentiate the program.

 Other programs connect school students in developed countries with school students in developed countries. Global Connections connected the school students in Australia with groups of young people outside of the school system in Indonesia. The young people in Indonesia were among the most marginalised in their communities – including for example young people in detention. It would seem likely that an initial focus of the Australian students would be on the difference that is represented by the respective circumstances of the connected groups. It is likely that there would be more perceived commonality if both groups were in school and ‘doing’ school. In a similar way, the people administering the program would be able to understand and negotiate problems more easily if they were all working within schools and communicating directly – rather than for example, working in schools and prisons through an NGO intermediary.

 Other programs most commonly effect connections via online web-based systems whereas an online connection has not been possible with Global Connections. The lack of online connection means that communication is delayed. Timely connections of the kind that young people in Australia with access to ‘instant’ communication possibilities have come to expect are impossible. The delayed communication also potentially provides advantages however, in that the range, extent and creativity of communication pieces exchanged is enhanced and can be more considered.

 The connection is facilitated by young people who are not teachers and are outside of the education system compared to the other programs that utilise existing staff in schools. This situation creates a different learning environment than if the children were working with adults in their accustomed roles (as teachers).

Some of these distinctions are perhaps subtle with regard to their effect, but collectively they are important in distinguishing Global Connections from other programs. Global Connections reaches

30 Other organisations include for example Global School Partners, School-to-School International,

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young people in developing countries who would not be reachable through school connections and creates learning environments that are different to online connections mediated through teachers.

Finally, Global Connections extends the ‘student-led learning’ approach by its use of youth facilitators rather than teachers. The program effectively adopts a ‘youth-led approach’ to ‘student-led learning’.

No equivalent situation was found in the literature whereby young people not involved in teacher education programs replaced teachers as facilitators of programs in school classrooms. Perhaps the closest parallels are found in mentoring programs which involve older students (and sometimes young people from outside the school or from other schools) working with younger students.

Mentoring programs are common to most schools in some form but they do not replace normal teaching practice in timetabled classes. The scope of mentoring programs is therefore considerably less than the role the facilitators play in Global Connections.

2.4 Conclusion

There are no neutral positions for education activity – educational programs and activities are undertaken in schools to serve particular purposes. In recent years it has been difficult to define the social purpose of school education within the context of an increasingly globalised economy, an increasingly globalised population, and an increasingly globalised framework for evaluating educational attainment. In many ways, the economic processes of globalisation have reinforced a vocational/neo-classical orientation of formal education and being a global citizen is often conflated with being part of a global economy. However, education has always served multiple purposes and although Global Connections was designed initially to fulfil the goals of a development NGO there is scope within the formal documents mandating school activity in Victoria to endorse such a program including its socially-critical orientation.

Nevertheless, although supported at theoretical levels within educational discourse and practical levels by education department rhetoric, Global Connections represents transformative practice with regard to the purpose, content and methods that constitute the customary activity of secondary schools. The discipline-based structure in secondary schools with an attendant focus on particular learning objectives makes a program that operates outside of discipline confines in ways that are not prescriptive with regard to outcomes inherently difficult. Additionally, the innovative pedagogical structure using facilitators that do not ‘teach’ differ from normal school environments. Both of these characteristics inevitably challenge teachers with regard to their interpretation of the learning environment that is created and the learning that takes place.

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The discussion in this chapter suggests that to understand the formal education half of the partnership the empirical research phase should focus on the way that Global Connections is interpreted with regard to perceptions of its purpose, content and methods so that it can be understood in relation to school practice. The empirical research should also incorporate

investigation into the way the program integrates with ‘normal’ school systems and processes. It further suggests that the teachers who would normally inhabit that teaching space should be the primary source of data with regard to the schools’ interpretations of the program.

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Chapter Three: Development NGOs, development, and non-formal education 3.1 Introduction

Plan constituted the non-formal education half of the partnership equation in the Australian part of Global Connections. As such, Plan needed to justify their part in the program’s activity within a framework informed by the mandate for their operations. NGOs are not insulated from accountability to their stakeholders and to the general public. Indeed, NGOs seek to be held to account for the things they claim to be, and for what they actually do (Grzybowski, 2005). In

developing, monitoring, and evaluating programs, NGOs not only address the question ‘How can we do what we do better?’, but must also ask ‘Should we be doing other things instead?’ (Roper & Petit, 2002). Plan, in all their activities connected to Global Connections necessarily had to reconcile what they did with their primary mission of reducing child poverty and disadvantage.

This chapter begins by describing Plan as an organisation and the rationales behind establishing Global Connections within the scope of their development-oriented activity. In doing so, the chapter also identifies particular characteristics of the program that involved transformation and

organisational learning for Plan as a development NGO. The chapter then considers the work of development organisations more generally and particularly the ways that they work with young people in educational contexts. The discussion is generated, as it was with formal education in the previous chapter, with reference to relevant literature as well as to the particular circumstances of this research project. The intention is for this chapter to provide indications of how the empirical research can be constructed so that the research findings might usefully inform other partnership situations involving NGOs.