Road to Global Citizenship: An Educator’s Toolbook
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Consider the relationship between who your students are (see About the students, pp. 24-34) and what
content may have resonance for them. Some content may tend not to be compelling to students, either
because it is difficult to grasp, presents an unpopular perspective, or may be seen as ‘boring.’ If you
consider this content important, you might share with students why you have included it despite
negative feedback from students. At the same time, when you are making choices about content, it
is worth thinking about who your students are and what may be of particular interest to them.
A Greek friend who is a professor at a University in
Greece came to UBC a few years ago. He visited
classes that I give every year and he was amazed by
the fact that I could not rely on a common cultural
canon to get my points across. So when it comes to
illustrate, for example, the difference between
religion and science, you could always draw your
science examples from the West and the religion
examples from the Judeo-Christian tradition. But
when half of your students are Iranian and the
other half are Chinese and Indian, you can’t do
that! If I want to illustrate my stories with examples
from the ancient Greeks, many of my students who
are from India and East Asia would not know what
I mean. If, as a Westerner, you want to get anything
across, you have to ask yourself a deeper question:
what is the human experience beyond that which
is embodied in the Greeks or the Judeo-Christian
experiences? So I draw on examples of scientists
from all over the world to illustrate certain points,
turning points in history, and examples to contrast
the scientific approach with the major religions and
the major cultures of the world. Here, it helps that
I read a lot.
Another thing, I’m a strong Darwinian. When you
look at the reinterpretation of culture that neo-
Darwinism offers through evolutionary psychology,
you cannot illustrate that with only examples from
a certain culture. If you agree that evolutionary
psychology offers an understanding of part of
culture, and part of human behaviour and human
nature, then you have to illustrate this through
behaviours from all continents. If you can use
examples only from Europe and North America, it
could mean it is not universal! So evolutionary
psychology forces you to back your points with
examples from a wide range of cultures.
In the course that I teach every year, I also spend
quite a bit of time explaining the origin of modern
Homo sapiens. I want students to realize the
profound unity that humankind shares. If that
doesn’t foster global citizenship, I don’t know what
does! So in my course we do the evolution of
modern humans, and I also explain the similarity
of the evolution of languages to the evolution of
biological diversity. I try to illustrate my points with
examples drawn from all over the world. I’ll speak
about Austronesian languages with the same ease
as Indo-European languages. It is a rather literal
global citizenship that I promote.
-Daniel Pauly,
Professor and Director, Fisheries Centre
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