13/08/2020
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With the aid of examples, discuss how globalisation has affected classroom practice.
Technology is to a larger extent responsible for globalisation. Globalisation has reduced the whole world to a village in terms of various links between people. This assignment seeks to discuss how globalisation has affected classroom practice. Firstly, key terms, globalisation and classroom practice will be defined. Then a brief look at how education is being globalised will follow. This will be followed by a focus the advantages and disadvantages of globalisation to classroom practice. A way forward will be chatted based on the discussion thereof. Lastly, a conclusion will be drawn from the discussion.
Definition of key terms
Globalisation: According to Gibson-Graham, quoted in Tatto (2006), globalisation is a set of processes by which the world is rapidly being integrated into one economic space via increased international trade, the internationalisation of production and financial markets, and the internationalisation of a commodity culture promoted by an increasingly networked global telecommunications system. Shumbayawonda et al. (2015) define globalisation as the process through which nation states have become closer and closer together and more strategically connected through new and faster form of communication and transportation. In this assignment globalisation will be understood as the integration of knowledge, ideas and skills the world over, through the use of latest technology including means of transport.
Classroom practice: Barron et al. (2006) define classroom practice as the teaching and learning that takes place in the classroom. Kim (2007) views classroom practice as the art of imparting education by the teacher to the learner. In this assignment the writer defines classroom practice as a teaching and learning process whereby the teacher imparts knowledge and skills (education) to learners in a formal education institution.
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Main discussion
Globalisation has had influence in education in a number of ways, some of which are television, mobile phone, the computer and transportation. Television has been used to teach people from different parts of the world at the same time. The advantage of using television technology is that it makes both verbal and visual symbol systems transient rather than stable (Shumbayawonda et al., 2015). The invention of satellite television has made it possible for programmes to be beamed on air and be received by the globe (world). For example a tutor on television can deliver a lesson to a virtual classroom. Students can attend the lesson from their homes. Knowledge and skills transmitted through the television will have similar effects to all who attend. Programmes like National Geographic can help change the attitudes of people throughout the world towards nature. This means a common understanding, hence culture is slowly being fostered throughout the world.
Computers have also been instrumental in championing the globalisation cause. According to Shumbayawonda et al. (2015), one of the critical strengths of a computer is that it can connect to the internet. Teachers and learners can use the Google facility to search for information on the internet. Information disseminated by Google is consistent, which means those who search for such information will get the same answers. As a result, a common understanding of issues will be fostered. Computers can also connect to sites like You Tube which beams images of phenomena being sought after. Again the images are similar to all who visit the site.
Shumbayawonda et al. (2015) assert that in Zimbabwe, cell phones are also used to connect to the internet, but their small screens usually see many teenagers using the phones for social networking than educational purposes. Be that as it may, some teenagers can still put the phones to educational use. Mobile phones have facilities for connecting with others through social sites like WhatsApp, Facebook and Tweeter. These sites provide facilities for the formation of study
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groups. In light of this, teachers and learners can form study groups which fall outside the classroom setting. These groups can share valuable information which may not be available in classroom practice. Since mobile phones can also connect to the internet, they can be used for googling for information as well as visit You Tube. They can also download valuable information from the internet.
Means of transport have been eased by the invention of the aeroplane. This means people from different parts of the world can visit each other and share their knowledge and skills. Such programmes as cultural exchange involve meeting people from other cultures and sharing cultural experiences. Since education is also defined as transmission of culture, it means these cultural exchange programmes are intruding into classroom practice. Musical shows have also been used to transmit culture from one part of the globe to the other.
Globalisation has advantages and disadvantages, depending on what variable is considered. One advantage of globalisation is that people will have a common understanding of various issues. This tends to minimise conflict among people from different parts of the world. As a result, issues such as online tutorials are facilitated because people perceive phenomena in similar terms. Terminology would be understood similarly by people from different parts of the world. For example, if a student needs to find out the meaning of a certain word or phrase, he/she can simply consult an online dictionary. The meaning derived thereof would be the same another student who consults the same online dictionary elsewhere.
The other advantage of globalisation is that it complements the efforts of the teacher in classroom practice. With the vast pool of knowledge in the internet, teachers can task pupils to research and find answers to assignments on the internet. A lot of valuable information can be obtained from the internet even via satellite television, some of which may have been previously unknown to the teacher. Report back on such assignments can assist some students
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acquire knowledge that they did not have, and that could not have been supplied by the teacher in traditional classroom practice.
Educational tours in form of cultural exchange programmes can be valuable to both teachers and students since means of transport are now fast and efficient. When studying, for example, Australian Aboriginal culture, a Zimbabwean class could visit Australia to find out first-hand information from the Aborigines themselves. A cultural exchange programme can be arranged so that students learn more about different cultures. Castells (1996) maintains that learning other people’s cultures increases one’s understanding of the world around them.
With globalisation, information is disseminated very fast. Things are reported as they happen. History, for example, can be studied as it happens. Events are recorded and disseminated there and then, at the touch of a button. This assists the teacher and learners to keep abreast with current information. The information will be disseminated by the same sources which will make understanding of the information homogeneous.
However, while globalisation has its brighter side as alluded to earlier, it also has its darker side. Events in the outside world are taking place much faster than in the classroom. As a result, the teacher may find out that he/she is becoming redundant. Pineau (2008) argues that technology is slowly replacing the teacher. This is because students can research and find more detailed information in a subject than the teacher knows. This puts pressure on the teacher, who is supposed to disseminate this information. When students discover that they know more than the teacher does, they tend to lose confidence in such a teacher. This on its own is also another disadvantage to the students themselves. When they lose trust in the teacher, they are likely to be led astray by the internet and veer off the syllabus content, which the teacher controls. The teacher is meant to plan for class activities and direct the teaching/learning process, based on the syllabus.
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The other aspect of the impact of globalization on the classroom is the challenge of teaching the diversity of students and cultures in the classroom and in school systems in multicultural institutions (Reynolds and Vinterek, 2013). Teachers do not easily understand the background of understandings and experiences of the children in their classrooms without considerable investigation and so there are increased difficulties in knowing where to start, what knowledge can be considered most basic, and therefore most common, in these groups of diverse experiences. Classroom practice must also respond to constant and on-going student access to the diversity of global perspectives and global information via such technology as phones and internet (Reynolds and Vinterek, 2013). What is new in all issues associated with technology is that all this information is unfiltered though a national lens of civilly appropriate content; it is not vetted by national curriculum or by national standards of morality or ethics. In fact policy documents seem irrelevant to these other sources of information and perspectives (Reynolds and Vinterek, 2013) . The multiplicity of types of information and perceptions requires clarification in classrooms and in classroom pedagogy as to how to judge the varying points of view.
Globalisation has effect on the syllabuses as well. Each subject discipline has its own syllabus so that knowledge is compartmentalised for the ease of transmission. For example Geography Science and agriculture have different syllabuses. However, globalisation has broken the boundaries between the disciplines. You find that a topic like soil erosion exists in Geography, Science and Agriculture, but with globalisation no reference is made to the different disciplines: soil erosion is just treated thus. This might confuse pupils who study the subjects separately.
Another general consequence of globalisation for schooling is that the quality of national education systems is increasingly being compared internationally, with a growing emphasis upon mathematics and science curricula, English as a foreign language and communication
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skills (Vulliamy, 2010). This, in turn, has led to policy-makers’ concerns about countries’ relative positions in the international league table of test results and the desire to copy the policies of those countries who appear to be doing well. For example, in Zimbabwe, such programmes as Early Reading Initiative (ERI), Performance Lag Address Programme (PLAP) and Teaching Handwriting, Reading, Arithmetic and Speaking Skills (THRASS) have been introduced to Zimbabwean schools because they have been tried elsewhere and proved to be effective. The circumstances of the schools in which such programmes are initiated are not taken into consideration.
The processes of globalisation have had not only widespread economic and political consequences, but also socio-cultural ones. Globalisation tends to build one common global culture. In doing so, the more dominant cultures are expressed in the overall new dispensation. Devecioglu and Kurt (2013) observe that all the cultural boundaries among countries have been melted by influence of globalization process. Educated people try to step over the boundaries and improve all people around the world. This is their main goal. Sociologists such as Castells (1996) have emphasised the power of cultural and informational interchange in creating a global society based upon a dense network of transnational exchanges and affiliations in a world where time and space are compressed. Access to knowledge and information enable those participating in such networks to wield greater power. This too is viewed by many theorists as diminishing the role of the nation-state since communities of people can have social relations irrespective of the territory to which they belong (Castells, 1996). As a result some cultures are assimilated. For example, most of the internet business is conducted in English. Ndebele is not expressed globally. This has the effect of looking down upon Ndebele. You find the younger generation adopting western lifestyles and shunning their own indigenous lifestyles. This means the parents of tomorrow would have been completely swallowed by the global system. Even the taste for music by the younger generation is rapidly becoming
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westernised. The function of education as a transmission of culture is nullified by the global system and the classroom teacher has no control over it.
Globalisation also sets standards for the workforce that is expected from the classroom. These standards cannot be met by most educational institutions, let alone economies. The economic changes associated with contemporary globalisation are reflected in the dominance of transnational corporations (TNCs) in the global economy. They are estimated to be responsible for over half of the world's value-creation and over half the largest economies in the world are TNCs and not countries (Vulliamy, 2010). These corporations superimpose their own global network of integrated production and investment activities across various continents. In doing so they dictate what qualifications would meet their expectations for job recruitment. If education systems cannot meet the set standards then there is a problem. This means the education systems are gradually being relegated as unfit to produce employable graduates. On an international footing, graduates from some institutions may find themselves not competing aggressively on the job market.
As a way forward, education systems should try to adapt to the ever-changing global environment. This is because globalisation is here to stay and is not going anywhere. According to Pineau (2008), the older educational forms – especially the school – fail to satisfy the needs of hyper-dynamic labour markets in this new age. Students should be exposed to the internet and should gather as much knowledge as they can. Instead of studying subjects, learners should study concepts since some concepts cut across subjects. Governments should keep on finding out what is needed in the global job market so that they train their students to fit into the international employment system. Kim (2007) cites that the growing international pressures of globalization affect practitioners in unpredictable and different ways. The development of teaching profession basically is tied to the process of translating global trends to teacher training. Teachers’ collages can introduce online courses that will respond to current
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global demands. In that way students can be guided through e-learning thus including what is essential for the future of the students. Then these values are imparted to pupils back in schools.
Conclusion
This assignment focused on discussing the effect of globalisation on classroom practice. Key terms were defined and put into context. Then ways in which globalisation is affecting education were described. These included the use of television, computers and means of transport. This was followed a look at advantages of globalisation, such as keeping abreast with world educational trends; and disadvantages of globalisation in as far as it affects classroom practice. A way forward was suggested given the fact that globalisation is here to stay.
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References
Barron, E., Odell, C. and Mercier, S. (2006). Globalization and Education: Impacts on Classroom Practice. RMES 500Q / ANTH 409, April 2006.
Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell.
Devecioglu, Y and Kurt, I. (2013). Educating Teachers for the Global World. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 3 No. 19; November 2013
Kim, T. (2007). Old borrowings and new models of the university in East Asia. Globalization, Societies and Education, 5:1, 39-52.
Pineau, P. (2008). Education and globalization: A Latin American perspective. History of Education, 37:6,743-755.
Reynolds, R., Vinterek, M. (2013). Globalization and classroom practice: insights on learning about the world in Swedish and Australian schools. Nordidactica: Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education, (2013:1): 104-130
Shumbayawonda, W. T. (2015). Emerging Trends in Secondary Education: Module PGDE 211. Harare: Zimbabwe Open University
Tatto, M.T. (2006). Education reform and the global regulation of teachers’ education, development and work: a cross-cultural analysis. International journal of educational research, 45:231-241.
Vulliamy, G. (2010). Educational Reform in a Globalised Age: What is globalisation and how is it affecting Education world-wide? UK: University of York.
