In the course of researching ESL (English as second language) materials, my wife came upon Global Brains: Knowledge and Competencies for the 21st Century by Gary Ferraro.
At first, the list of competencies seemed relatively typical; but once I started playing around with how they actually related to each other, something kind of clicked, and the entire approach seemed to have a little more usefulness.
Overall, the ten competencies could be divided into those that were more external in their focus and those that tended to be more internal, and then paired up to reveal creative tensions, thereby opening up opportunities for creativity and growth.
And so, for example, a Broad Perspective increases the scope of Personal Autonomy, while Flexibility reinforces the ability to Shift Paradigms, and Emotional Resilience facilitates Balancing Contradictions, and Building Relationships depends on a fundamental Integrity.
My wife and I are currently working on illustrations from our own overseas experience toward building a Global Citizen curriculum. So let’s see where this goes!
