By Rana diOrio, author of the What does it mean to be Global?
Insights from an award-winning children’s book author and educator on inspiring young minds and fostering positive values through literature and education.
Our brains process approximately 11 million pieces of information per second. Our conscious mind can only handle about 40 of those pieces, so we are heavily reliant upon our subconscious mind to manage the rest. We do this by processing, filtering, and sorting information and recognizing patterns. Think of it as each of us has our own lived experiences, education, and preconceived notions—our own lens.
While efficient and streamlined, our lens and the quick decision-making it helps us achieve can be prone to error and lead to unconscious or implicit bias, especially when applied to people. As a result, we may miss out on opportunities to be better global citizens and foster intercultural understanding. We must be mindful of one another’s lenses and challenge ourselves to expand our own.
Interview with Rana Di Orio, about how to foster global citizenship in children.
Ways To Be A Global Citizen
- Be Curious
Foundationally, a global citizen is someone who asks questions to gain a deeper understanding and really pays attention to the answers. We have two ears and one mouth and ought to use those gifts in that proportion. Cultivate in your students a sense of wonder and awe. You can do this by having a beginner’s mind yourself. Channel what it’s like to experience something for the first time again— consciously stripping away your assumptions and prejudices. And really enjoying the discovery journey with your kids. Be open to learning from them!
- Experience Other Cultures
A global citizen is open to immersing themselves in other cultures. With your beginner’s mind and a growth mindset, have some fun! Create and enjoy immersive experiences with your students. Explore and discover music, food, traditions, religions, etc. together. Show them, don’t tell them. And then have meaningful discussions about them. One way to do this is to pair with another classroom somewhere else in the world. Your students can flex their curiosity muscles by writing to one another. And you can guide them on an exploration of another culture enhanced by these personal connections.
- Understand How Our Actions Affect Others
So, the curiosity you foster in your students inspires the experiences you enjoy with them, and the net result is, ideally, empathy. Being genuinely global requires us to look at our experiences with unfamiliar cultures, to compare and contrast them with our own, and to understand that differences don’t put us at odds with one another. Being global requires understanding – truly internalizing, not just “knowing” – that someone’s worldview is heavily informed by the context of their life and upbringing. We can’t begin to expand our minds and get out of our comfort zones beneficially without grounding ourselves in this core realization.
Situational awareness is a great skill to practice with your students and will help them understand context. With younger children, you can point out that we are expected to adapt our behavior to be appropriate for different places and situations (we act differently in a church, temple, or mosque than we do at a party at our friend’s house). It is interesting to expose older children to new environments and ask them what they perceive and why.
“two of the great lessons humanity will learn in the 21st century will be:
to harm another is to harm oneself
when you heal yourself, you heal the world.” ~ yung pueblo
- Respect That Others May Have Different Values
A global citizen respects that others have different values and has no judgment about that. Our values and perspectives are not inherently better or worse than someone else’s. They’re just different. One of the most essential life skills you can teach your students is erecting and maintaining healthy boundaries. And also how to ascertain and honor the boundaries of others. This respect for self and others keeps everyone safe.
In her book Dare to Lead, Brené Brown says, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” No one can read your mind, and you can’t read theirs. Open and honest dialog about boundaries will earn respect and build trust.
- Choose Kindness
This is a big one. A global citizen chooses kindness. A common response to the question what does it mean to be kind? is to follow The Golden Rule. That is, to treat others the way you want to be treated. The Golden Rule is described as being the most culturally universal ethical tenant in human history. It is foundational to many of the world’s religions as well as our systems of law. To be a global citizen, however, we must encourage children to treat others how they want to be treated. This is a subtle yet significant distinction. We must also be kind to Mother Earth because people everywhere depend on her.
- Celebrate Diversity While Knowing We Are All One
A global citizen takes pleasure in noticing, exploring, and experiencing all that is different between and among us and how we live. But then, they acknowledge that we share a universal experience—we all eat, sleep, play, laugh, cry, love . . . And in this, we are one.
“We all have different inspirations, but one goal: a better world.”
~ Ernesto Argüello
- Help Others Thrive
Sharing this common human experience, we know that at times, we all need help. A global citizen helps their neighbors, near and far, thoughtfully and meaningfully. Let’s build community and support one another. Let’s overcome challenges and solve complicated problems together. Let’s model this behavior for and with our children.
Let’s inspire children to change the world.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
Global Citizenship is a Lifelong Endeavor
No matter where we are from or how we were raised, we all play, laugh, fail, love, rejoice, etc.—we share a universal experience that makes us one. Employing curiosity, empathy, connection and, most of all, respect, fosters global citizenship and creates a world instilled with kindness towards, interest in, and acceptance of other peoples and cultures. In today’s global world, being a global citizen is how we celebrate one another, and we can do it every day, in new and exciting ways.
If you want to know more, you can find thoughtfully curated resources to help kids (and maybe a few grown-ups!) embrace what it means to be a global citizen here.
Stay tuned for more blogs on global citizenship skills. This blog series is part of the Skills for Life Initiative, an Inter-American Development Bank effort to develop crucial competences among children and youth in Latin America and the Caribbean and address the skills gap deeply present in our region.