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Aylan Kurdi and many more could not complete the hazardous voyage across the Mediterranean Sea. When I saw the real image of Aylan washed up on the beach , I felt pure shame. Shame on all of us.

We have to build better migration policies!

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‘’Migration is defined as “movement from one country, place or locality to another.” Ever since the earliest humans began to spread from Africa, humans have been on the move. Even today, 3 per cent of the world’s population—at least 258 million people—live outside of their country of origin. Whether voluntary or forced, migration has profoundly shaped our world.’’

Even though migration is considered to propel economies and cause creolization, irregular migration is regarded as a danger in the global North. The restrictive immigration policies by countries in the global North can be a perfect indicator for this trend. Migrants who had to leave their country to survive mostly had to face racist reactions from the societies they arrived in. We can blame the media, which cause negative perceptions about immigration in the North. Though people poisoned by the media see migration as a danger, migratory flows from the global South to the North can positively impact migrants and their host societies.

Well-tailored policies can pave the way for more inclusive and sustainable economic growth in the North and the South . I believe Critical thinking and Global development education have a key role in successfully tackling biased ideas born from racism. After migration, settlement process arrive. Moreover, many problems can be encountered during this process. As Monisha Bajaj expressed, The Core Competencies for Critical Peace Educators and Learners can situate the learner and researcher within a holistic framework for analyzing violence and possibilities for peace. According to Bajaj, there are 4 competencies to embrace.

1. Conflict mapping: What are the historical roots of this conflict? Who benefits from conflict?

2. Agency and social location: What forms of individual and collective agency might be possible given the conditions?

3.Critical thinking and analysis: Who controls the production of narratives? What is behind the curtain ?

4. Participation and solidarity: What forms of participation are possible and meaningful?

Answering these questions throughly can help us, educators, to shed light on the underlying causes of the conflict.

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The Education System: Does It Support and Maintain an Unequal Society? Are we taught to consume and to be consumed by our own consumption? Are we blindly serving poverty? That's a real brain-twister.

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I knew that poverty is everywhere, yet this week I have learned that crises such as Covid-19  impact mostly poor societies in a devastating way. According to a report taken from

International Labour Organization, Covid-19 is projected to push more than 70 million additional people into extreme poverty and hundreds of millions more into unemployment and poverty. More than 250 million people are at risk of acute hunger. Even though many politics have claimed that progress against poverty is "one of the most outstanding human achievements of our time, these figures may help us understand how naive we were when we thought extreme poverty was nearing eradication.  Extreme poverty and inequalities are increasing sharper than ever, let alone eradicating them.
Moreover, understanding how we measure poverty might shed light on how far we are from realities. World Bank's international poverty line, which is outdated and ill-defined, is capable of measuring poverty in today's world.

The goals of SDGs have definitely raised awareness around the globe; however, to be able to empower and collaborate, people have to exercise human rights, which is not the case in many states. We must acknowledge that SDGs are lack political motivation to combat poverty, economic inequality, gender inequality, and climate change.

Moreover, contrary to what my teachers and colleges think, I believe the current education systems are far away from combating poverty and empowering the children of the poor. I have read many strategical reports on how governments hide and postpone their unemployment rate. The easiest way is to open institutions and bulk the classroom with students exposed to tons of impractical information. The worse is that ill-defined education systems serve the rich, increase poverty and must undoubtedly be reestablished around human rights.

This week I certainly understood that ‘’Extreme poverty is and must be understood as a violation of human rights.’’

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History demonstrates that democracy is indeed the better system for amassing international wealth and power.

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It is well known that democracy is an organization or situation where everyone is treated equally and has equal rights. However, practising democracy fully might not be the case for many countries even though they are ruled by democracy. There are different versions of democracy: thick and thin.

” While “Thick” understandings of democracy seek to provide full collective participation in the search for the common good and the creation of critical citizens, “thin” understanding of democracy neoliberal focuses on consumer choice, possessive individualism, selfishness, and an education that is valued mainly as a tool for meeting a set of limited economic and ideological needs as defined by the powerful (GUNTER; HALL; APPLE, 2017).

Were democracy not to be practised fully and equally, well-intentioned policies trying to democratize the processes and outcomes of education would harm the impoverished.

In the article, THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY IN CRITICAL EDUCATION, Michael W. Apple explains the situation by releasing real-life struggles encountered by girls in a school setting.

In order to understand and act on education in its complicated connections to the larger society, we must engage in two sets of understandings. The first involves us in the process of repositioning. That is, we must see the world through the eyes of the dispossessed (in the case I just discussed, the impoverished girls and young women) and act against the ideological and institutional processes and practices that reproduce oppressive conditions (APPLE, 2012). Second, we must also think relationally. That is, understanding education requires that we see it as fundamentally a political and ethical act. This means that we situate it back into both the unequal relations of power in the larger society and into the relations of exploitation, dominance, and subordination–and the conflicts--that are generated by these relations (APPLE, 2004).

Creating and sustaining a fully participatory critical democracy is only possible by providing the conditions in which people have a real chance to participate(WILLIAMS, 1989).

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During a devastating crisis, it is true that many people suffer, but some may undergo more painful experiences.

To build a better future for everyone - for all living creatures on earth- we must embrace gender equality and combat violence against women with all instruments. Today, I believe, the most powerful tool to end gender-based violation is the Istanbul Convention. Please check whether your country ratifies it. Unfortunately, mine has not :(

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Gender-Based Violence and COVID-19 - UN chief video message

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This week, we have studied feminist perspectives on development education and investigated SDGs regarding gender equality. Many people may associate feminism with women. Despite that, there are many feminisms and they are as many individual perspectives and standpoints as they are reflective of movements and a variety of ideological and theoretical positions (Harding, 1987; Ramazanoglu, 1989; Butler, 1990; Skeggs, 1994, 1997; Smith, 1999; Ryan, 2001; Fraser, 2013).

The article by Eilish Dillon, ' Connectıng The Personal And The Polıtıcal: Femınıst Perspectıves On Development Educatıon' settles feminism and DE within the context of debates on feminist epistemologies, critical pedagogy and the politics of DE.

Furthermore, it argues that 'feminism is for everybody' (hooks, 2000). Feminism paves the way for a better understanding of Development Education by establishing the links between the personal and the political. Applied to Development Education learning processes, feminism highlights both exclusions and agency. Feminism challenges development educators not only understand women's experiences of oppression, exclusion or agency and power but also integrate 'the personal and the political. It challenges unjust power relations and self-reflexivity. Placing feminism in DE  is a complex and radical process, and it demands not just to be thought or talked about this way but also to be practised.

When it comes to SDGs, I always have thought that the 2030 Agenda and its 17 SDGs are powerful enough to shape better societies. However, after scrutinizing the data released by OECD(oe.cd/to-SDG -targets), I realized that there is an immense gap in terms of genders. . The 2030 Agenda has Gender Equality as its main ambition, with a dedicated goal (SDG 5). However,the data shows that many OECD countries will need to make more progress to achieve the gender-related SDGs, especially in violence and safety, employment, representation and management. Making progress for women and girls is crucial for achieving the 2030 Agenda and its 17 SDGs.

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Cambridge Dictionary defines coup d'état as a sudden illegal, often violent, taking of government power, especially by an army.

Please imagine a society that adopts the actual value of human rights and successfully integrates Human Rights Education into its core curriculum!
Do you believe such a blatant violation of democratic principles, which heightens the risks of prominent human rights abuses, could occur in that society?

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This week we have studied Human rights and human rights education. I was aware of the literal definition of human rights: "the standards that recognize and protect the dignity of all human beings and they govern how individual human beings live in society and with each other, as well as their relationship with the State and the obligations that the State have towards them. However, I did not know that the definition and recognition of human rights might be interpreted differently according to the different schools of thought.

Based on an analysis of the human rights academic literature, the article 'What Are Human Rights? Four Schools of Thought', written by Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, suggests that there are four different views. The first one is "natural scholars", who claim that human rights are given by nature. Natural scholars consider human rights as derived from nature itself. The second one is "deliberative scholars" who claim the rights are agreed on. They simply reject the natural scholars' idea by expressing human rights as political values that societies agree to adopt to achieve better legal and political standards.

The third group are called "protest scholars". As the name reveals itself, they believe rights must be fought for. Moreover, the last school of thought, called "discourse scholars". They conceive rights as talked about ,and they believe that human rights exist only because people talk about them. They mostly do not believe in human rights and reflect a need for better projects.

When it comes to human rights education (HRE), the author of the article 'Revisiting 'Emerging Models of Human Rights Education', Felisa L. Tibbitts, tries to update the models she put forward to categorize HRE back in 2002. Those models were  Values and Awareness, Accountability and Transformation. The main reason for the amendment was the need for a more straightforward analytical framework of HRE to reduce human rights violations. A stronger association of the Values and Awareness Model with socialization, the Accountability Model with professional development, and the Transformation Model with activism are the revisited versions of the older models.

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I believe European Green Deal is a great tool to raise awareness of society. A great indicator of recognition! However, is it ambitious enough?
Can the GLOBAL NORTH maintain high growth, high production, high lifestyle and still save the climate?

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The European Green Deal explained in 3 minutes

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This week I have learned that climate change was only dealt with in natural sciences in the past; however, to understand the implications of climate change and to be able to curb its imminent effects, understanding social sciences, health sciences, and politics with natural sciences is a must.
Many different models have been developed to describe the objectives and special features of environmental and sustainability education. Trying to depict environmental or sustainability education, many of these models do not sufficiently reflect the broad scope of climate change.
That is why we read the article that suggested a model for climate change education: the bicycle model. The model was first published in Finnish to depict the holistic nature of climate change education in a way that can be easily visualized and understood (Tolppanen et al. 2017). The goal is a holistic approach that combines a scientific understanding of the climate change phenomenon with knowledge of humanist-societal causes and consequences

Regarding it affects youth future, climate change education should be a compulsory lesson starting from primary school.  Students thinking critically, systematically and appropriately will create and reflect on alternative future scenarios and affect their own and society’s future.

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The founder, the father of the Republic of Turkey, once said, 'PEACE AT HOME PEACE IN THE WORLD.
I believe empowering learners of all ages for active roles globally and building more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and secure societies are only possible by promoting Global Citizenship Education(GCE).

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I did not know, but I have learned that empowering learners of all ages for active roles globally  and building more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and secure societies are the primary goals of Global Citizenship Education(GCE)

Educators and policymakers in many countries increasingly seek to integrate GCE. I realised that there are different approaches related to GCE.

The global competencies approach, which aims to provide students with the necessary skills to compete in a global society;

The global consciousness approach aims to provide students with a global orientation, empathy, and cultural sensitivity, stemming from humanistic values and assumptions (Dill, 2013).

While soft GCE could be equated with 'education about global citizenship' (as per Dobson, 2003; Marshall, 2011), providing students with an understanding of the world and cultural tolerance, critical global citizenship requires a deeper engagement.

Critical GCE, which Andreotti (2010) later developed into post-critical and post-colonial GCE, provides students with the skills to reflect upon and engage with global issues involving conflict, power, and opposing views; to understand the nature of colonial, liberal and western assumptions; and to strive for change.

Political global citizenship focuses on the changing relations between states and individuals or other policies;

Moral global citizenship focuses on ideas such as human rights and empathy;

Economic global citizenship  focuses on power relations, forms of capital, the workforce, and international development;

Cultural global citizenship emphasises symbols and cultural structures that divide or unite members of different societies and consider the globalisation of different cultural forms.

Studies of teachers, school staff and pre-service teachers showed that teachers and educators recognise the importance of GCE; however, they often feel trapped between curricular goals, and urging its incorporation in the classroom and cultural norms of nationalism

Studies of curricular reform, formal curricula, and textbooks revealed that although developed countries embraced the promotion of global citizenship through education and travel, the concept is conceived chiefly in terms of learning about the other, which is inadequate in fostering empathy and identification or any critical thinking regarding global issues, according to leading scholars in the field.

Moreover, studies focusing on policy, textbooks, and curricula found GCE to be quite widespread but articulated and operationalised differently in different national contexts (and even in different local ones). The particularities of GCE in each country are somewhat contradictory to the universal nature of the concept itself, a paradox that should be further explored,

Studies of students unveiled that although most studies assume that GCE is important for all students, the authors often chose to limit their own study's populations to students from affluent backgrounds or majority groups of the population, ignoring the implications of these groups' particular characteristics on the ability to apply their conclusions to broader populations, even within the same country.

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I think the image simply could be replaced by the word 'Policy' because it shows the process in which there are goals for improvement.

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This week ı have learned many different notions. First of all, even I  used the word ‘policy’ many times earlier, I did not know it could have many different definitions throughout history.
Although policy studies is a relatively recent field of academic endeavour(the 1950s), many attempts have been defined.
The simplest of all definitions has been provided by Dye (1992), who argues that Policy is ‘whatever governments choose to do or not to do’.
‘Policy can refer to things that can in principle be achieved, to matters over which authority can be exercised and  ‘Policy is both text and action, words and deeds, it is what is enacted as well as what is intended’.
American political scientist David Easton (1953: 129–130) argued that: The essence of Policy lies in the fact that certain things are denied to some people and made accessible to others through it.
Also,’ Policy is about change (Weimer and Vining 2004). It is through Policy that governments seek to reform educational systems, for example.

I observed that many more definitions could be added; however, it is evident that they have some words in common: improvement, change for the better, reform.

When it comes to policies on the Global Educational Model, they definitely must aim to :
1. a virtuous educational system that is an expanded and universal one.
2. a renewed interest in effective teaching that is supposed to lead to deep understanding, not merely rote memorization
3. be participatory and progressive.
4.  the virtuous educational system which  is attuned to world educational standards
The virtuous educational system is expected to prepare students to meet world challenges and seize global opportunities. All sorts of educational systems increasingly include references to the world within which they are embedded.

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Enough with the imagination people! Let's make it real :)

BTW you can see them performing on Grafton Street, Dublin.

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How BEAUTIFUL are his vocals!? | "Imagine" by John Lennon | Allie Sherlock & Jacob Koopman Cover

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I have learned that development education cannot be defined  as a static concept but as a continuouesly improving pedagogical approach to contribute to the learning process.

There are many interpretations of Development Education such as awereness-raising activities about global poverty and dealing with development problems to pave the way for broader/better learning .

There has been a general movement from seeing development education as a matter of information, to make up an information deficit in the ‘west’, to seeing education as the very fuel for the engine of development both in the ‘west’ and in the ‘Third World’. (Regan and Sinclair, 2006: 109)

The aim of development education is to make every citizen ready to act for sustainable world. Solidarity, equality, inclusion and co-operation are the key factors for the active learning process. Moving from basic awareness of international development priorities and sustainable human development, people will understand the causes and effects of global issues.According to Rajacic, 2010a: 121 , Involving in diverse groups to activate global citizenship and encouraging  engagement while devoloping competencies of self reflection must be baselines of funding development education.

Devolopment education is crucial not only  because there is undenyiablle need to educate people who can do more than reading,writing and counting but because  facing global challenges require global slutions as well.

It is evident that Development Education  tries to tackle the problems of rapidly changing  inequalities and injustices of today’s world by raising awarenes and calls for an action to provide global social justice.