The Human Element: Public Service/Social Action in the Classroom

Without question, education is experiencing a dramatic shift, one needed to meet the demands of a more digital, global world. Author of The Flat World and Education, Darling-Hammond states, “The best employers the world over will be looking for the most competent, most creative, and most innovative people on the face of the earth and will be willing to pay them top dollar for their services… candidates will have to be comfortable with ideas and abstractions, good at both analysis and synthesis, creative and innovative, self-disciplined and well organized…” This shift encourages content and standards be taught with purpose to complete an end product with real-world relevance within classrooms that encourage inquiry and investigation to provide a business model with collaboration and organization, communication, and innovation. Several classrooms have been transformed into vehicles for public service where empowerment through real-world action is developed and fueled.

Additional literature addresses creative uses of technology to encourage the aforementioned innovation. As quoted by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, “Creative uses of technology require us to go beyond ‘functional fixedness’ (the manner in which the ideas we hold about an object’s function can inhibit our ability to use the object for a different function) so that we can innovatively repurpose existing tools toward pedagogical ends.” Unfortunately, often technology is viewed as an automated system, and many believe its very nature limits productive social interactions and constructs barriers. But, if utilized in an innovative manner, technology can be used to fuse humanity rather than to divide it.

Therefore, we must encourage the very characteristics that make us compassionate, empathetic humans. As members of an undoubtedly global world, we need to provide curriculum that does not simply touch on global concepts or use special units that cover multiculturalism or diversity. We should not constrict our lessons to cultural months or culture fairs. Our curriculum on any given day should appeal to the globe, diverse cultures, race, SES, and/or sexuality to list a few. Our curriculum must be anchored by global concepts, not highlighted with global topics. And those concepts might appear in seemingly simple, not so blatant forms: audience, language, inference, sensitivity, etc. Regardless of how we intertwine those concepts, those concepts are imperative to teaching the human element.

It is possible to combine these components: creativity, innovative technology, digital and civic literacies, and cultural/global awareness to ignite human experiences. It is possible to meet state/national standards and cover content via a project-based approach, using the classroom as a channel for public service and a catalyst to social action. And those on the outside, those gracious enough to provide us a platform for this experience, they will find that the human connection is reciprocal. There are profound outcomes to human experiences. Beyond the fact that the standards/content are received in a meaningful way - students gain a desire to connect.

To view evidence of social action in the classroom, please visit the links below:

The Strength Project (in progress):
https://sites.google.com/a/uni.edu/holly-hanna/deo-project

Merge:
www.wix.com/hollyhanna/merge

The Library Project:
https://sites.google.com/a/uni.edu/holly-hanna/library-project

Great Books: A Transdisciplinary Semester (in progress)
https://sites.google.com/a/uni.edu/holly-hanna/great-books-transdisciplinary-semester