Essential Question:
While the curricular components are specific and differentiated to provide students with a structured and in-depth study of the relevant areas of development, all aspects of the curriculum and all seminars are driven by the following Essential Question:
How can I be a proactive agent of change?
Guiding Questions:
Each curricular component addresses a Guiding Question that provides a focused look at an aspect of the Essential Question. In addition, students are challenged in seminars and discussions to critically analyze their own identity and position in a global context. These Guiding Questions include:
� Who am I as an "American?�
� What power do I have?
� How "big" is the world?
� How do changes to global politics and economics affect me?
Seminar Format:
Seminars in Thinking Beyond Borders are focused specifically on challenging students to explore the direct observations that they made and place them in the context of international development. Daily seminars will take various forms, including formal lectures and discussions with local experts on specific topics, presentations of new concepts and debates among the students, and informal conversations over meals. Students are assigned readings that address the curricular themes and the current context of the trip. Students are expected to prepare for seminars and will educate their peers about the content of specific articles and readings.
Curricular Components:
1. Primary Source Research Skills: What are the essential skills and understandings of the proactive Social Science Researcher? Based on a series of observations, note taking, and interviewing activities, this component develops skills for data gathering. The accompanying seminars, readings, and discussions challenge students to examine the influence that the researcher has upon the subject, how to design research approaches, and how to analyze collected data.
2. Economic Theory: How does a global economy produce vast wealth and vast poverty? Beginning with an overview of macro-economics in the context of globalization, this component focuses upon the interdependency of international markets, global production and consumption patterns, and international debt. The seminars and readings challenge students to place observed realities in the context of international economic systems and forces.
3. Political Theory: How do the structures of political systems empower and disempower people? A primary examination of designs for local, national and international government systems through academic texts leads students to application of these theories to observed contexts. The seminars and readings explore the relationship between individual power and that of the larger political system, whether for a village or the UN.
4. Challenges of Development: What are the commonalities among the challenges and tragedies of international development? This component is the broadest reaching of the curriculum as it challenges the students and guides to apply the lessons of the other curricular areas as they face the challenges of development in their host communities throughout the world. Specifically, seminars will challenge students to go beyond stereotypes and simplifications of economic and power relationships and dig into the complexity of development issues and social tragedies like poverty, environmental destruction, and social oppression. The student team will identify similarities among the processes creating these tragedies in an effort to develop solutions.
5. Culture, Race, Gender and Change: Why do cultural and racial diversity and gender differences often produce inequality, and what steps can be taken to create greater equality? Building on Jared Diamond�s research into the origins of the technological superiority of specific cultures and races, this component examines how the concepts of superiority and inferiority define human interactions. Seminars will compare and contrast cultural assumptions and juxtapose racial stereotypes with observations. Each reading and discussion will challenge the students to identify the root of cultural and racial divides and determine how best to approach bridging those gaps as communities collaborate in the name of development. The seminar will also explore the challenge of balancing an appreciation of cultural relativism with protecting fundamental human rights.
6. Presentations of Learning: How can I change the world? Students will prepare formal presentations that reflect their learning during their Thinking Beyond Borders program. Presentations will articulate an understanding of issues of international development, conclusions regarding the universality and diversity of the human experience, and personal growth. Presentations will be made to a variety of formal audiences including the families of the students, philanthropy groups, and traditional schools around the US.
