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Our First Annual Conference
Launch of the Global Schools Association
Lord Parekh of Kingston upon Hull opened the first annual Yorkshire
and
Humber Global Schools Association conference. The event, held
in the
Civic Hall Leeds on Friday 26th September 2003, was well attended
by educators from across the region. Lord Parekh said in his opening
speech that the main purpose of school should be to produce “good
human beings.” He pointed out the ever increasing globalisation
of the world in which we live has the result that the smallest
effect in the remotest part of the world now has a profound effect
on us.
The main purpose of
school should be to produce “good human beings.”
Lord Parekh questioned what we should be doing to help our children
to cope
with a world which in ten or fifteen years time, will be even
more globally
integrated - economically, culturally, morally and emotionally?
He stressed
that we cannot think just in terms of our own country. Lord Parekh
suggested several ways in which we need to help the children we
are educating. Firstly through a sound
knowledge of the world in which we live. Not merely a passive
“spots on the map” approach but an understanding that
what we are doing now is closely connected to the rest of the
world. We also need to equip our young people so they know how
to answer the question,“how do I deal with people who are
different to me?” We need to recognise
and respect differences, understanding that things can be done
in many different ways. We are charged with the task of cultivating
a sense of global justice, a commitment and concern for the sufferings
of others. He also suggested that the globe is not out there,
but in here, and we do not need to go abroad to find a rich array
of cultures.
We need to examine commonalities not
differences and work to
reduce the strangeness of the stranger.
In conclusion Lord Parekh suggested that we need
to examine commonalities not differences and work to reduce the
strangeness of the stranger.
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