Taking soundings has a new rival in Leeds. Let's hope it's a success! Here's their invite:
We would like to invite you to the first Leeds Salon debate on Friday 17 April 2009 at Waterstone’s in central Leeds.
Leeds Salon is a new public debating forum which aims to promote lively and open discussion around contemporary political and cultural issues.
Global Citizenship in the School Curriculum
Friday 17 April 2009, Waterstone’s, 93-97 Albion Street, Leeds, 6:30pm.
Speakers:
Alex Standish, Assistant Professor of Geography, Western Connecticut State University, author of 'Global Perspectives in the Geography Curriculum: Reviewing the Moral Case for Geography', (Routledge, 2009).
Dr Vanessa Pupavac, Lecturer in International Relations, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, author of 'Children’s Rights and the New Culture of Paternalism; The Disciplining of Desires and Emotions'.
As the school curriculum in Britain and in the U.S. has changed from a subject-centred and national approach towards a child-centred and multicultural one, global citizenship - a new set of values to do with respecting the environment, diversity, and human rights – has been imposed on almost every subject and geography in particular.
For its supporters, the turn towards global citizenship represents a belated opening of education to the real problems facing the world. It is a change that has the potential to connect children’s lives to global problems and to show how, by modifying their lifestyles, individuals can contribute to the wellbeing of the planet and of humanity. For its critics, the teaching of global citizenship is a moralistic attempt at behaviour modification which undermines the integrity of school subjects and children’s understanding of the world. Far from creating better citizens, it fails to develop children’s capacity for autonomous judgment.
Interesting articles:
Keep ‘Global Issues’ Out of the Classroom, Spiked 18 Dec 2008
Geography lessons sacrificed in favour of trendy causes, Daily Telegraph 20 Jan 2009
If you would like to join the debate please reply to this e-mail. This event is free, but a small, voluntary contribution will be asked for on the night towards costs.
Coming up at Leeds Salon on Thursday 4 June 2009:
Kenan Malik, author, broadcaster and Moral Maze panellist will discuss his new book From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy. Details to be announced.
Yours,
Paul Thomas
Leeds Salon http://www.leedssalon.org.uk/
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I'm still wishing this discussion group well, but they do seem enormously interested in the Spiked Online/Institute of Ideas constellation of writers. Are they a 'front'? Is it Mcarthyite to mention this? There are people on the left who really hate the contrarian Enlightenment libertarians of the Institute of Ideas and point to its genealogy and origins out of the strange but chic organisation the Revolutionary Communist Party of long ago.
ReplyDeleteI think 'Taking Soundings' is a better bet for leftwing discussion, but are we a front for the Soundings magazine, with its roots among the Europcmmunists of the old and defunct Communist Party?