Through these practices, we begin to understand all the ways that we are connected to each other despite any cultural differences.
Maintaining Physical, Mental, and Emotional Health
Teacher or student, maintaining a balance between physical, mental, and emotional health within ourselves is essential in helping us better manage our everyday affairs. Some practices for maintaining holistic health can include activities like the following.
• Maintaining regular physical exercise
• Taking up a hobby
• Helping others
• Joining a club or group
• Changing up a daily routine
Having physical vitality, for example, increases our longevity and our ability to enjoy life at any age. Activities that support mental and emotional health help diminish stress on the mind and body and make us more resilient. All of this contributes to whole-being wellness and stability.
Managing Financial Matters
Financial education helps students understand that wealth of any kind comes with responsibilities. Money management encourages the adoption of lifelong smart financial strategies. It shows students the value of hard work and maintaining its rewards.
Developing Ethical and Moral Standards
Treating others with respect lies at the core of every culture’s ethical and moral standards. By developing a personal ethical structure, students can learn the fundamental differences between right and wrong, just and unjust, and moral and immoral. It provides students with personal guidelines for living honest and charitable lives, and sets an example for others. This is part of how all of us contribute to the safety and well-being of our whole society.
Establishing a Personal Responsibility Assessment Framework
Figure 2.2 presents a rubric for assessing the development and progression of a global digital citizen’s sense of personal responsibility.
Figure 2.2: Global digital citizen assessment rubric—personal responsibility.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/technology for a free reproducible version of this figure.
It is important to understand the purpose of this rubric and those that follow in this chapter. It is not intended as a summative judgment of a person, but rather a formative discussion of what is possible. We have not presented benchmarks for age levels as every individual, depending on life circumstances, will be at different levels. Stress, for example, could play a major role in our ability to evaluate, and we may instead simply react. Additionally, the evaluative capacity we expect to see from an individual varies from person to person. Using these measures as a formative tool allows us to reflect on who we are, what we value, and what we want to be.
Global Citizenship
In a world where an Australian follower can retweet an American user’s tweet and have a Pakistani citizen see it moments later, we are all global citizens. Global citizenship involves recognizing and fostering how 21st century technology transcends the physical boundaries between citizens of the world by enabling communication, collaboration, dialogue, and debate across all levels of society. The following sections detail the importance of recognizing and fostering a student’s presence in the global community and the personal connections within that community. We also talk about understanding the concept of circles of possibilities that affect how all of us can make our mark on the world. We conclude this topic with a framework for assessing student progress toward becoming good global citizens.
Recognizing and Fostering Global Community
Because we are part of a global community, barriers of time and distance no longer exist. This brings about an awareness that technology instantaneously connects us with the world, and with that comes personal and communal responsibilities. We have the means to help and support people all over the world, in addition to those in our local communities. This may seem a Herculean task, but the goal is not to solve all the problems of every community around the world. The goal is to recognize and empathize with others’ struggles while endeavoring to contribute to positive solutions wherever possible. We believe that guiding students to this realization helps foster more respect for the various traditions, values, faiths, beliefs, opinions, and practices of a global community.
Recognizing and Fostering Personal Connections
The connectivity that brings us together as global citizens brings with it new personal connections. For example, you may be surprised to learn that 35 percent of couples married between 2005 and 2012 first met online and report they are more satisfied than other couples (Magid, 2013). Having connections of every kind shows us the benefits of being able to share our ideas with more people than ever before. It encourages acceptance, sensitivity, and humility in dealing with others.
Students must learn to see the marketplace they will become a part of as global citizens and recognize the significance of their ability to use shared technology to do work all over the world. They must learn to manage many relationships with peers and colleagues all over the globe and understand why, thanks to technology and the connectivity it provides, it has never been easier to foster and renew relationships with faraway people. For example, a classroom can connect with global learners and established professionals using applications like Skype. Likewise, websites like Kiva (www.kiva.org) allow learners to use microlending to help entrepreneurs in poorer world regions get started on their own business ventures.
Understanding Circles of Possibilities
Further cementing links between personal connections and global communities is also about recognizing what we call circles of possibilities. Ask yourself this question, How do you see the world? When Lee’s Japanese sensei first asked him this question, he had an immediate response, one that came without considering the meaning of the question or his deepest feelings. Maybe you also had such a response when you read this question.
Some see the world through the lens of fear, that the world is not safe. These individuals are constantly concerned about what the world will take from them. Others see the world through curiosity, and to them the world is a wondrous place full of possibilities and opportunities. Many see the problems that the world faces and feel a sense of despair. This despair can be so painful that these individuals find distractions to escape reflecting on human suffering and their own feelings of helplessness. Our students, who are our children, feel this too.
What we believe has been most beneficial in building capacity in students, teachers, and administrators alike is an understanding of what all of us can do and how that leads to change. If you knew for certain you would succeed, that you would solve the problem which is your greatest concern, would you take action? Of course you would. This empowerment is reflective of a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset—that is