Introduction and rationale
This site provides the details of Development Education Week in the Education Department of NUI Maynooth. It includes an overview of the purpose of the week, its structure and the programme of events, as well as links to relevant sites and resources. The week is organised as part of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education Programme and is the outcome of planning by the academic and administrative staff in the department.
We live in a world characterised by injustices. Issues of global inequality are difficult ones for which there are rarely simple answers. This component of the PGDE course is based on the belief that education for world democracy, for human rights and for sustainable human development are central concerns for the school curriculum. Indeed, education has a vital role to play an advancing the international development agenda. Therefore, all teachers deserve opportunities to consider the world through the eyes and ears of the victims of global injustice. Furthermore, they deserve support in incorporating such perspectives into their everyday classroom teaching, irrespective of their subject areas.
The particular perspective on education fostered by ‘Development Education’ is one that sees students as active agents in their own learning. A critical, questioning approach is favoured over one that might tell them what to think or even one that dramatises the horrors of poverty and famine. Methodologies associated with ‘Development Education’ tend to be active and so are of real practical benefit to students in a wide variety of education settings.
Of course, it goes without saying that these features: promoting concern, empathy and a sense of responsibility towards others; encouraging student autonomy and developing approaches that are active, critical and questioning are also features of good teaching. Thus, the ‘Development Education’ component is an essential, integral and compulsory part of the PGDE course.
We live in a world characterised by injustices. Issues of global inequality are difficult ones for which there are rarely simple answers. This component of the PGDE course is based on the belief that education for world democracy, for human rights and for sustainable human development are central concerns for the school curriculum. Indeed, education has a vital role to play an advancing the international development agenda. Therefore, all teachers deserve opportunities to consider the world through the eyes and ears of the victims of global injustice. Furthermore, they deserve support in incorporating such perspectives into their everyday classroom teaching, irrespective of their subject areas.
The particular perspective on education fostered by ‘Development Education’ is one that sees students as active agents in their own learning. A critical, questioning approach is favoured over one that might tell them what to think or even one that dramatises the horrors of poverty and famine. Methodologies associated with ‘Development Education’ tend to be active and so are of real practical benefit to students in a wide variety of education settings.
Of course, it goes without saying that these features: promoting concern, empathy and a sense of responsibility towards others; encouraging student autonomy and developing approaches that are active, critical and questioning are also features of good teaching. Thus, the ‘Development Education’ component is an essential, integral and compulsory part of the PGDE course.
