
While in other fields the Internet is mainly considered to provide solutions to everyday problems, lawyers far more frequently discuss legal problems created by the Internet. This is only natural given that lawyers by profession seek out legal problems to ponder and solve. One potential solution, however, that I think deserves recognition is the power of online education to avert international disputes in the long term.
The Potential of Global Education for International Conflict Resolution.
My persuasion that eduction is the solution to many international disputes stems from my experience of the International Baccalaureate program (IB). While partly created to allow children of travelling diplomats to obtain globally acceptable qualifications for university admissions, the IB’s mission is to “develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.” The international curriculum certainly offered my class a more nuanced view of the world than my national education had done up until that point. We studied history through the accounts of historians from different countries, often from different sides of a conflict. We read and analyzed world literature and studied and represented different countries in Model U.N. Primarily, we came to understand that there are always many different sides to an issue and that an adequate solution to a problem needs to acknowledge them all. As I later studied public international law, I was incredibly appreciative of this understanding.
Although admission to the IB program vary by country, the eduction is often reserved to a small clique. My school required high grades and good performance on entrance exams in English and Math. Elsewhere, the program is offered by private schools charging high tuition. But more children would benefit from a global education and intercultural understanding that they could draw upon as adults, for example, when deciding which political leader to support in their home country. Wouldn’t it be great then if global education of that sort could be available to everyone? Now, thanks to the Internet, it may well be in the very short future.
Khan Academy, Skype in the Classroom, Teach the World Online, and Beyond.
The Internet has provided many new opportunities for higher education via iTunesU, P2PU, Academic Earth, Open Culture, to name a few. However, while older or exceptionally gifted students can do a lot of self-learning, to teach younger students and achieve the intercultural understanding I discuss above on a wider scale, online education needs more structure.
One such more structured program is Khan Academy. It provides over 2,100 educational video tutorials that students can watch in their own time, with the ability to stop and rewind when a student finds a concept challenging. Students can then do exercises online, which are generated based on each particular student’s performance. The answers are analyzed to provide an overview of each student’s progress. The Khan Academy’s initial focus has been on improving science and math skills, but it does have potential to provide global social science education as well.
Skype in the Classroom is a global community for teachers to use Skype in their work to share their experience with classes across the world. Teachers can come up with a project or search among the 550+ projects that other teachers advertise. It is an incredible resource for teachers to offer different perspectives and cultures to their students. However, it requires teachers to be open-minded to new teaching-styles and technologies.
Teach the World Online offers English classes via video conferencing to children in Haiti, Nepal, Colombia, and Cambodia. Though its curriculum is currently limited to language classes, fluency in English will make it possible for these children to use all the other resources available online if they have access to the Internet. Thus, this too has the potential to provide students with intercultural understanding.
New education projects are springing up. Many are in form of start-ups. Many more are to be expected, particularly with the recent launch of Imagine K12, an education start-up accelerator modelled on the highly successful start-up accelerator YCombinator. Imagine K12 focuses on education in the U.S. However, given that many of their companies will offer technology and web-based solutions, if successful, they are bound to spill across geographical boundaries.
Wikipedia and Other Information Online.
Finally, if a student today has a question about the homework material, rather than waiting until the next day to ask the teacher, she is more likely to google it or consult Wikipedia. As a result, the information she’ll obtain will likely contain the nuanced world view that comes from global participation online. The editing process on Wikipedia ensures that its entries capture controversies and various views on issues. This too could lead to more intercultural understanding over time.
Originally posted here.
Photo by D Sharon Pruitt.
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