An illuminating moment in a 5th Grade classroom today. Students were participating in the NewsBowl Quiz that they complete in each Friday. Students divided into teams and were collaborating to answer questions posed on the weeks events. One question and answer really made me smile in the light of the republican debate on Wednesday and understanding what our students know and understand of things like elections and the candidates. The question was “Which candidate for president is ahead in the polls for the Republican nomination to run for president?” A flurry of collaborative conversation took place with one student saying to another “It’s Donald Trump!” - to which the student replied “No, he’s not a politician!”
From the mouths of babes - but I watched these children as they navigated pretty difficult questions concerning current events and things that will concern them in the future - their leadership, their rights, climate change and the economy and I wondered when these children graduate in 2024, what will the world look like?
The Global Goals were launched this week from the prior set of Millennium Development Goals (MDG), of which there were eight key issues that, by 2015, the world needed to address. These eight original goals addressed everything from global poverty to gender to disease and child mortality. Annual regional measurement was reported in a report issued the the United Nations each October.
These have recently morphed into The Global Goals and these have more than doubled in size and in their remit! 193 world leaders will now “commit to 17 Global Goals to achieve 3 extraordinary things in the next 15 years. End extreme poverty. Fight inequality and injustice. Fix climate change through seventeen different areas.
It is this generation - these 5th Graders and their peers, that will grow up with these ambitious goals and will be tasked with the challenge of completing them. That’s why we need to teach problem solving skills - resilience to stay the course alongside the knowledge that these children will need to navigate a world the grows in complexity every day!
From the mouths of babes - but I watched these children as they navigated pretty difficult questions concerning current events and things that will concern them in the future - their leadership, their rights, climate change and the economy and I wondered when these children graduate in 2024, what will the world look like?
The Global Goals were launched this week from the prior set of Millennium Development Goals (MDG), of which there were eight key issues that, by 2015, the world needed to address. These eight original goals addressed everything from global poverty to gender to disease and child mortality. Annual regional measurement was reported in a report issued the the United Nations each October.
These have recently morphed into The Global Goals and these have more than doubled in size and in their remit! 193 world leaders will now “commit to 17 Global Goals to achieve 3 extraordinary things in the next 15 years. End extreme poverty. Fight inequality and injustice. Fix climate change through seventeen different areas.
It is this generation - these 5th Graders and their peers, that will grow up with these ambitious goals and will be tasked with the challenge of completing them. That’s why we need to teach problem solving skills - resilience to stay the course alongside the knowledge that these children will need to navigate a world the grows in complexity every day!