Reflection On Ethics And Global Citizenship

After partaking in the S.P.H.E, Ethics and ERB and Global Citizenship lectures and seminars, I have gained a very extensive insight into each subject. Without a doubt there is a pivotal connection between all three, and each carry meaning which are intrinsic to us as teachers and as human beings. The common link I found that ran between the three subjects was the importance of treating everyone equally and with respect. This can be examined via the act of bullying in the SPHE curriculum, gender and religious stereotyping in Ethics and ERB and racism and cultural bias in Global Citizenship.

SPHE promotes a positive environment in the classroom; however sometimes trying to achieve this can prove more difficult than anything. Bullying is a major problem in primary schools and is a form of discrimination as it usually targets someone who is physically or mentally weaker in an attempt to exclude them. Sometimes it can be the result of an act of jealousy and the bully reacts violently or angrily towards the other person. A lot of bullying these days is in relation to gender bias, with people being called ‘gay’, or ‘tranny’, and a lot of the time the children who call people these names don’t even understand the words themselves. O’Neill and Dinh report that ‘Almost a quarter (23%) of 9-16

We looked at a book call Mama Panya’s Pancakes which told the story of an African family going to the market. Opening a child’s eyes up to something that might not be the norm from an early age may be a key ingredient in counteracting bias. ‘Intercultural education happens naturally through the hidden curriculum’ (NCCA, 2005: 4) therefore we must attempt to explore these notions as explicitly as we can. Once they become acclimatized to a notion it will then become familiar. We must teach that all these notions are the norm for someone,