Things small hands tell me ~Consider about GCED~

One day of school Camp, I stayed at monastery in a small village in Shan state, and discussed about GCED (Global Citizenship EDucation) by watching short movie below.

GCED has been proposed by UN in 2012 and carried out by UNESCO since 2014. This concept is a time when Internet technology has advanced and more and more information can be exchanged instantly in various forms, from text to image, from image to video, and even the back side of the earth can be seen from a small window. It was born because it became.

What I felt in conversation with them is "barrier of language".

How much could we, who speak English as major language, convey our thoughts to local children and how much could we understand their thoughts?

Of course, I tried to communicate with them by utilising Google translation nevertheless I had to feel limits in conversation through ICT.

Also, I remember that I looked at their little hands and shook for a moment when I played together with Ayatori. Their hands which is about half small of my hands were soiled in black and were surprisingly stiff and hard.

My friends are all different in nationality, race, and skin color, but they all have soft, clean hands. I seemed to be learning in “Diversity” and it actually wasn't. In the end, I was only affiliated with "a party of children who are rich and can speak English".

I felt a kind of arrogance about that situation.

I, Hirotaro, think that I ought not to let them trace the past development which developed countries have walked because I had and am having opportunity to see Vietnam and Myanmar actually. They already have their own concrete identity despite they live in the small village without any information. There will always be an unfortunate mistake when we try to force the development of developed countries against them.

We couldn't know world on the Internet. There are always factors which cannot be seen unless we meet and see it actually. If we continue to think in the framework of where you are, no matter how ideal GCED is, our behaviors will be out of place.

The Global Citizenship students appealed by the video might be armchair theorists.

Internet is just the small window. In order to create realistic Global Citizenship, we need to visit there, not just look.

I would like to continue to be interested in how happy their little hands are.

Japanese version here