From: Student Pugwash USA <uspugwash@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.org.pugwash
Date: 14 Dec 92 11:53 PST
Subject: Re: *Tough Questions: Fall 92 News
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1758700030:cdp:1758700040:000:4793
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!uspugwash    Dec 14 11:53:00 1992


Tough Questions - Conference Issue 1992

EDUCATING GLOBAL CITIZENS
By Jose Camberos, Jean Heller-Hendrick, and Barbara Sabonis-Chaffee

     The Education working group had to coalesce from a very broad 
base... and a long title: Educating for the Socially Responsible Use 
of Technology.  The papers submitted and discussed interpreted 
TeducationU to involve everything from how to best inform the public 
on the environmental hazards of landfills; to criticism of gender 
bias and other flaws built into formal education; to the unique 
problems of technological education in the face of extensive defense 
and  aerospace industry influence.

     From the diversity of topics to the diversity of individuals, to 
the diversity of educational and experiential backgrounds (students 
ranged in age from 19 to 53), the group worked to identify themes 
that could bring the far ranging topics into relationship.  We 
developed a list of 36 educational issues which had been raised, 
with three major categories emerging: 1) broad public education, 
as in media and print; 2) educating for values as a base for 
socially responsible decision making and global sustainability; 
and 3) formal education in classroom settings.

     Discussion around the TwhatU and ThowU of broad public 
education led to an increased awareness of the magnitude of issues 
that call for our attention, of the critical importance of 
maintaining respect for a diversity of views in addressing these 
issues, and of the tremendous power the media has to mold public 
opinion within this process.  Many members of the group felt that 
we must strengthen lines of communication between traditional 
TeducatorsU and the Teducated',  for it is more often than not 
that solutions to problems are found within the richness of human 
diversity than by TexpertsU seeking solutions in isolation.

     In order to enhance our understanding and facilitate our 
exploration of an educational agenda for instilling values as a base 
for socially responsible decision making and global sustainability, 
we generated a list of 21 criteria for consideration in developing a 
working definition of Tsocially responsible technology.U   The most 
inclusive and acceptable definition was that Rsocially responsible 
technology must be environmentally and economically sound, 
politically and socially acceptable over time, and it must meet the 
needs of todayUs population without compromising the needs of future 
generations.S  Furthermore, in order to explore the implications of 
such an educational agenda on a more individual level, we shared 
Tpersonal plans of actionU of how we might go about learning and 
sharing with others our visions for a sustainable world.  These 
ranged from developing a global support network for activists in 
developing countries, to producing a program on this conference for 
the local public access cable channel, to pursuing teaching in the 
sciences at the high school level as a career.

     Our final task was to address the needs of formal education at 
various levels.  In keeping with the concepts evolved in prior 
discussions, the group concluded that the goal of formal education 
should be the cultivation of globally educated citizens, with skills 
in critical thinking, creativity, empathy and the ability to 
communicate effectively.  These citizens must also be ethically 
concerned and able to develop, select, and use culturally sustainable 
technologies.  In any attempt to reach this goal, however, formal 
education must  first switch its emphasis from the imparting of 
information to the building of skills for Tlearning how to learnU and 
for making responsible choices.  Also seen as important was the 
commitment of those possessing knowledge and experience to mentor the 
next generation.  Only then will citizens be truly educated and 
empowered to act as agents of change.

      One conference participant, Jos Camberos, reflected upon the 
TwhyU of educating oneself and others on the creation of a sustainable 
world.  Jos shared with the participants of the 1992 SPUSA 
International Conference one possible answer he found universal -- 
Rbecause I contain the capacity to choose.  Freedom.  Unless we 
respect and cherish freedom, in the ideal, we impose a personal bias 
to all our judgements.  Any practical explicit solution to our common 
problem ultimately presupposes some bias because personal experience 
limits our capacity for action....Lao Tzu speaks of the world as a 
process, not an ideology, not a political, economic, environmental or 
social agenda.  The world Lao Tzu envisioned refers to an awareness 
of universal incompleteness in the process of becoming complete.  
Commitment to such an ideal transcends even our most noble actions.S