Life in 2030: Teenagers Illustrate a Better World for Humanity

Visibly, the ways people live and work are changing rapidly in the 21st Century. This makes us think about changes that might occur in the future and how our future life will look. Assuming that many jobs we see today will not exist, and completely new business and career will emerge, it is important to have the next generation project themselves in the future and share their perspectives towards the life they want to lead and how they would like to spend their time for that.

On May 10, in the IVECA virtual live class, Centro Educativo Varones High School students from Monterrey, Mexico and Hoover High School from Alabama, USA  discussed the living in 2030 and the values they think are most important to have in their future life. The students talked not only about themselves and the professions they would like to have, but also about how they want to share life with others and be of use for their communities. This live class enabled students to exchange intercultural perspectives regarding how to ensure human dignity in the future together. They also addressed how future technology should be used to create a sustainable planet for humanity and to live in harmony.

Both U.S. and Mexican students demonstrated optimistic viewpoints about their future together as global citizens who want to have a world full of love, respect and honesty towards the others. Emphasizing individuals’ responsibility for the interconnected global society, students envisioned the year 2030 would be more peaceful and prosperous with socio-economic well-being and equality—what they called “transforming lives” and “the green world”.

Additionally, it was fascinating that in this virtual meeting students used their partner country’s language–the U.S. students presented in Spanish, while Mexican students shared their views in English. Such a bilingual collaborative learning environment facilitated mutual respect and appreciation for other languages and cultures. The live class was ended with closing remarks by Don H., Hoover High School Principal, and Rodolfo M., Centro Educativo Varones Board Advisor.

“On our first opportunity to participate in this excellent program for good global citizenship, we realize that students and teachers really enjoyed the intercultural exchange experience to become Mexican-American friends, improving their capacity and vision.” (Rodolfo M.)

High School Students Make Global Difference

February 5, 2018, IVECA International Virtual Schooling & Samsung Electronics America (Samsung) and with the support of the UN Department of Public Information hosted a half day event of the STEAM Education for Global Citizenship to Achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Organized around two themes – STEAM Solution Developed Through Global Education and Private-Public Partnership on STEAM Education for Global Citizenship – the event has explored the holistic and intercultural integration of global citizenship. High school students, educators, diplomats, NGO-representatives, and social entrepreneurs from many countries joined together at the United Nations to discuss the dilemmas, challenges, and the positive impact of global citizenship through intercultural education.

TThrough the Global Classroom STEAM Challenge (GCSC) program provided by IVECA with Samsung’s sponsorship and collaboration, students from eight high schools representing five different countries: Korea, USA, Brazil, Tunisia, and China have worked passionately for about a semester, more than 10 weeks. Each school worked with their global partnership school; for example, Ross Butler Tech School(OH) is partnered with Korea Science Academy of KAIST (Korea), Downtown College Prep High school (CA) with Zhenjiang Vocational Technical College (China), Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy (PA) with International School of Tunis (Tunisia), and Lawrence County High School (AL) with Luiza Formozinho Ribeiro Public School in São Paulo (Brazil). Covering the subject of areas of science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM), they come out with innovative solutions to contribute to accomplishing the SDGs. Before coming to a final prototype, students discussed with their partners and exchanged questions and answers through mutual respect and intercultural collaborative learning process. By working together, students realized many similarities as well as differences in cultures and socio-economic systems between their communities and countries. Each representative student team expressed that global education and partnership is the fundamental pillar for tackling poverty, racism, gender violence, climate change and for promoting equality and economic development

The outcome of their one-semester collaboration and their prototypes of solution were presented to over 500 audiences at the United Nations and globally through the UN Web TV. Students’ hard work was shared through visual presentation, dialogue, and talk. The moderators, panel speakers, and audiences were mesmerized by students’ wonderful ideas, innovation, creativeness and the way they answered during Q&A session. Along with students, Ambassadors of Korea, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Qatar also spoke emphasizing the importance private-public partnership for holistic education and global citizenship. The entire event can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/2C5cwJU

This event was co-sponsored by the Permanent Missions of the Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, the Republic of Tunisia, and the State of Qatar to the United Nations, UNESCO New York Office, NGO Steering Committee for an International Day of Education for Global Citizenship, and NGO-DPI Executive Committee. The event undoubtedly is most memorable, inspirational and honorable moment for the youth leaders who came to the United Nations for the first time. The event was concluded with the Luncheon Award Ceremony. Representative students and teachers were conferred with the GCSC certificate and award endorsing hard work, dedication, intercultural competence and global citizenship they have demonstrated.

The World is Their Stage

All the world’s a stage, and people are actors, said Shakespeare. 

The theatre is certainly a wonderful way to learn about society and its history, and the students of  Hoover  High School (USA), and Jeonmin  High School (South Korea) did just that.  Meeting virtually through the IVECA program, these students used classical plays to teach one another about different aspects of their cultures and celebrate their differences and similarities. 

The students worked together for an entire semester. Students from  Jeonmin introduced Hoover students to Chunhyangjeon,  or “The Tale of Chunhyang”  one of the best-known love stories and folktales in Korean history.  Students from Hoover shared Shakespeare’s  Hamlet with their counterparts at Jeonmin. Students analyzed the plays and stories and shared their own perspectives which inspired wonderful discussions and opportunities for self-reflection.

Not only were they able to learn about their partners’ classical plays and folk tales, but students also learned more about plays belonging to different cultures by comparing them with those of their partners. The project helped participants better realize and identify the differences and similarities between the theatrical productions in the West and in Korea.