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"The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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"The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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Adichie's TedTalk discusses how we can narrow our world view when we make assumptions and do not look past what medias and our own environments present to us. She discusses her own short-sighted understandings of the world, and how her own culture was not part of her worldview until she started to look past the "single story" she was presented with.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story | TED

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"Facing History and Ourselves" is a website that gives a multi-faceted perspective on U.S. and global history through videos, photos, audio files, current events and curriculum resources for teachers to engage students in civil discourse. Teacher can browse by topic, or browse the various text files that are available to use in the classroom.

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The Global Oneness Project is a website that shares a variety of medias that discuss global and cultural issues through various medias (film, photo essays, interviews, essays, virtual reality experiences, etc.); these resources give students an opportunity to gain an understanding of the world through artistic and thought-provoking perspectives. Lesson plans are available for teachers at all levels, and the website also features some student submissions as well.

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Stories and lessons for growing minds

We are a free multimedia platform for educators and students. Through our immersive storytelling and curricula, we aim to plant seeds of empathy, interconnectedness, and a sacred relationship with our planet. Use our award-winning films, photo essays, and essays to learn about social, cultural, and environmental issues from individuals and communities worldwide. For grades 3-12, our stories and lessons encourage students to broaden their perspectives and worldviews while fostering universal human values and respect for the living world. We aim to bring universal values into the lives of educators and students.

Experience Our Storytelling

Watch this short video to learn more about the stories we tell.

Student Winners and Finalists: The Environment Is in You

In what ways is climate change impacting the place where you live?

In this contest, students documented the fragility, hope, and future of our planet's ecosystem due to climate change. Inspired by four environmental writers-Linda Hogan, Robert Hass, Wendell Berry, and Dara McAnulty-students explored changes to local systems, how the environment shapes our identity, and how our actions and awareness today can impact the future.

View Winners and Finalists

Feature

These five shorts films follows five Native American communities who are restoring their traditional land management practices.

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Essay

How might stories act as keys allowing us access to challenge, examine, uproot, and illumine our habits and fears?

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Feature

This feature shares the stories of four Indigenous communities in California who are working to revitalize their languages and cultures in order to pass them on to the next generation.

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"This film has historic relevancy. I can see myself using it to encourage students to think about the value of the space program and how it speaks to the American Spirit and how we are often looking forward in our progress. This film begs to be used as an exploration of what it means to be a global citizen, how students can learn from people not like themselves, and what actions students can take in their everyday lives to make the world a better place."

Michael Dunn, Director of College Counseling at Eagle Rock School & Professional Development Center

Stories Exploring Climate Change

Celebrating Student Artwork: New Student Gallery

Encourage thoughtful and meaningful conversations in the classroom with our student gallery. Use the gallery as a tool to foster curiosity, observation skills, and perspective-taking.

The gallery encourages students to learn from each other's perspectives. How are students witnessing and engaging with the world in new ways since the start of Covid-19? Search by theme, previous Global Oneness Project contests, or from locations around the world. The gallery is accompanied by an image analysis activity, including a Visible Thinking Routine from Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

View Student Gallery

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Who Is Using Our Materials

Our materials provide opportunities for an interdisciplinary approach to learning across disciplines from social sciences and humanities to environmental sciences. Education stakeholders, including K-12 educators, university professors, librarians, tech/media specialists, parents, and students are using our materials in multiple learning environments.

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PenPal Schools is a website that groups students with various students around the globe to engage in project-based learning on a variety of global issues, as well as learn collaboration and communication skills. Students will be challenged to consider others' viewpoints, and engage in discussion on those new perspectives. Teachers can indicate age groups and subject groups in order to find a topic that fits with their classroom.

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With my kid in high school, I don't really get to read her writing anymore. It's so fascinating, as a mother, to read her thoughts and watch her interact with her peers. I'm really enjoying getting to know my kid on a different, deeper level." Melissa Bolin

​Parent from Arlington TX, USA

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A Global Project Based Learning Community

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With my kid in high school, I don't really get to read her writing anymore. It's so fascinating, as a mother, to read her thoughts and watch her interact with her peers. I'm really enjoying getting to know my kid on a different, deeper level."

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"Youth Voices: Their Perspective" is a website that covers global issues, from cultural issues, diversity, global politics, and civic engagement. Contributors are from around the globe and are usually in their 20s. The articles available represent a wide range of perspectives, and invite student engagement with high-interest topics.

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You can become a correspondent today

a pioneering network of young and aspiring journalists and social commentators who publish articles, interviews and comment pieces on issues of mutual concern.
Find out more

About us

A platform for the voices of young people to be heard

YourCommonwealth.org is a website created and crafted by young people, students and emerging youth leaders. It is a platform for the voices of young people from Commonwealth countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Americas, Europe and the Pacific to be heard.

Read more

Our Youth Networks

Want to get involved with YourCommonwealth.org or the work of the Commonwealth Youth Programme?

Read more

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a pioneering network of young and aspiring journalists and social commentators who publish articles, interviews and comment pieces on issues of mutual concern. Find out more A platform for the voices of young people to be heard YourCommonwealth.org is a website created and crafted by young people, students and emerging youth leaders.

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With a wealth of perspectives to explore, the articles available through Youth Voices share viewpoints on culture, politics, and diversity from around the world. These articles could lend themselves to a current events project, where students explore issues across the globe. Specifically, students can chose from a variety of issues, and then be instructed to discuss through writing how the perspective of the author helps to shape the article; students should then be challenged to find an additional source or two to support their understanding of the author and the article.

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Adichie's speech can be used to charge students with searching their own understandings of the world for the "single stories" that they understand that create a short-sighted idea of other cultures and areas of the world based on what they have grown up reading or watching through various medias. Students can work with a partner or group to research a particular single story, then conduct research (this can be a long or short project) to challenge and discredit that understanding. Students can then create a presentation to share with peers about the perspective and global awareness they have gained toward the story.

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This website lends itself to supporting social studies classes and ELA classes to support the historical background of various texts. In a history class, a teacher can search the topic that they are interested in (the Holocaust, the Civil Rights Movement, Immigration, etc.), and give students multimedia text sets to introduce their students to a new unit, where students explore each text or media source, and create a one-pager (Sketch notes, Focused notes) that present the main idea and key details of the particular topic or issue. Students may be instructed to share the various viewpoints of the event or time period, then post the notes for students to view in a gallery walk.

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The resources that Global Oneness Project provides can be used in a variety of ways. One lesson idea is to use a one of the videos or essays to enhance or support an idea, such as success. A particular short documentary, titled "Welcome to Canada", shares the story of Syrian refugees that have been displaced and are working to acclimate to their new "home" in British Colombia, and how they are working to once again be successful in their lives. Teachers can use these types of resources to give students the global awareness about refugees, and what they need to understand about these displace groups of people. Additionally, teachers may have students speak to friends or family members to tell their immigration stories, or the immigration history of their family, and if anyone was ever a refugee, and why.

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With PenPal Schools, teachers are given various topics to engage in. In ELA, for the topic "The World Through My Eyes", students can work in a global peer group on various guiding lessons to lend to one of several projects they can choose from, whether it is a service project, community story-telling, etc., which would be a way to introduce students to global perspectives before starting a unit on world literature. Students can choose various ways to approach the topic, so there can be several groups of students working on the same topic; students will be working with different global peers, and make different choices within the project, so student presentations to the class will be unique and engaging.