Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Syllabus
INSPIRED BY
Instructor
Dr. Fred Mednick Founder, Teachers Without Borders Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Education fred.mednick@jhu.edu and fred@twb.org | 206-356-4731
with mentors womens science and university networks, agencies, and NGOs
EDUCATING GIRLS | Johns Hopkins University School of Education with Teachers Without Borders
Educating Girls revolves around four themes: access, public health, emergencies, and empowerment by examining sectors and stakeholders, teaching and learning, top-down policy and bottom-up movements. Well only touch the surface. It is said that the humanities teach a little about a lot and the sciences teach a lot about a little. Perhaps. It will be up to the student to go deep or wide, local or global. One fact is certain: this course is a call to action.
Students
Teachers
Online courses dont have the intimate feeling that can come from gathering face-to-face, but they can be far more inclusive. "Educating Girls encourages both the intimacy of colleagues who gather around issues that matter and the inclusion of new friends making a difference. You may not be able to eat together or shake each
Center for Global Development, 10x10act.org, UNICEF, Girls Education International, Fem 2.0, Girl Effect.
EDUCATING GIRLS | Johns Hopkins University School of Education with Teachers Without Borders
other's hand, but youll feel close to people you may not ever physically meet and who live in regions of the world you may never visit. Informed learning + Teacher Multipliers Time = Educated Girls. Its a complicated equation, but think of it this waywe dont have a moment to lose. Lets do the math and science. Lets teach each other. And, better yet, lets teach it to girls.
Reading List
All readings are available online and at no cost. The complete reading list is included in this syllabus week-by-week, and all articles are also available on SCRIBD, an online repository. Click on the link to see the list of articles. Well also provide a place for your bookmarks and research so that the course gets better the more people take it.
EDUCATING GIRLS | Johns Hopkins University School of Education with Teachers Without Borders
3. Knowledge of social networks (like Facebook), Google Docs, and applications like wikis 4. Well also introduce you to online applications like mapping and timelines Technology is powerful. Please post to the blog because your work is yours. Too much in the world is at stake to let your scholarship evaporate. Well provide tutorials and help with technology issues.
Grading Criteria
This is non-credit course professional development course, available for Continuing Education Units (CEUs). Grading will be based upon participation (discussion) assignments. Were going to be using a point system. Youll get feedback on discussions and assignments. Please know that your work will NOT be judged based upon the style or grammar of your writing, especially because a significant number of colleagues will not be writing in your first language. That would not be fair. Students submissions for assignments shall be evaluated based upon the following criteria: [6]: EXEMPLARY: Clear incorporation of research, an extra effort to learn more, proper acknowledgment of material other than your own, creativity, and clarity. All of this would be worthy of sharing to educators around the world and makes a contribution to our knowledge of teaching and learning. Mentor quality.
EDUCATING GIRLS | Johns Hopkins University School of Education with Teachers Without Borders
[4-5]: MEETS REQUIREMENTS: Satisfies the expectations of the assignment with professional use of sources. Demonstrates core competency. [3]: NEEDS WORK: Basic treatment of the ideas, but needs to dig deeper in order to show core competence. [0-2]: NO CREDIT: (a) Student uses others ideas as her/his own without attribution, and/or (b) does not address or respect the assignment. Should there be any issue about making deadlines, you will need to contact me in advance.
EDUCATING GIRLS | Johns Hopkins University School of Education with Teachers Without Borders
Please fill out your profile on the www.girlsneedtoknow.org site. Youll get an invite
EDUCATING GIRLS | Johns Hopkins University School of Education with Teachers Without Borders
KEY THEMES: Overcoming Barriers | The Data of Development and Girls Education | The U.N.
Millennium Development Goals: Progress and Challenges DUE DATES and CHECKLIST Background/Overview, Readings, and Media Questions, Conversations and Connections Writing and Activities Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum produced by the Pearson Foundation
EDUCATING GIRLS | Johns Hopkins University School of Education with Teachers Without Borders
Azmeras story: Maaza Mengiste, Meet the Writer from Ethiopia from Girl Rising Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Post 2015 Agenda (websites) MDG 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women: UNICEF Educators Guide to the MDGs: Taking It Global UN Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI) Global Advisory Committee (video) World Bank eAtlas of Gender: (sortable database) UNICEF Girls Education Campaigns
EDUCATING GIRLS | Johns Hopkins University School of Education with Teachers Without Borders
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protect education. The refugee population, worldwide, is growing alongside a youth bulge. Teachers, students, and schools are often unable to establish normalcy, no less move forward. It is a daunting undertaking. What are the standards and protocols? Amidst the human development nightmare of feeding and educating one million displaced Syrians in Jordan, what happens to educational systems as a whole, and the education of girls in particular? What are the issues to consider when an emergency strikes? Why build schools if children and teachers will be attacked? In the face of powerful evidence about the return on investment in disaster prevention and planning, how can it be that only 2% is spent on emergency education, including aid after a disaster? Yet amidst tragedy, there are heroes, and one network needs special mention: The Interagency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), responsible for establishing the standards that govern coordination support for prevention, planning, and global aid. Today, when an emergency breaks out, INEE has made it mandatory for educators to be part of first-responder teams. This week, well focus almost exclusively on INEEs work. And, of course, there are the unseen heroes teachers. Youll meet them in the article, Education Under Attack. The largest professionally-trained group in the world and a true development army, teachers know who is sick or missing or orphaned by AIDS. They count the children in emergencies, create child-friendly spaces, and provide desperately needed psychosocial support for families. An innocent girl, Wadley, wants to go school. In her way is earthquake debris, corruption, the cost of a uniform, a lack of transparency, neglect, and a lack of an education about the science of earthquakes and the lives that could be saved, if only there were a plan. This issue is not for the faint of heart. In your discussions and interactions with organizations, please understand the feelings of those who may have experienced this first hand. For those of you who wish to explore this issue in greater detail, we are also offering a course, ASAP: Education in Emergencies.
Wadleys Story: (Meet the Writer from Haiti, Edwidge Danticat) from Girl Rising Schools as Battlegrounds: Human Rights Watch (video) Despite Education Advances, A Host of Education Woes (New York Times) International Day of Disaster Reduction: (October 12th) Step Up Women & Girls: the invisible Force of Resilience Education Under Attack: UNESCO Interagency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE website) INEE Pocket Guide to Gender: (document)
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Sharon Ravitch, PhD Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Senior Advisor to the Minister of Education of Haiti; Yolande Miller-Gandvaux, PhD, Senior Program Officer for USAIDAfrica; Solmaz Mohadjer, Director of Emergency Education for Teachers Without Borders
DISCUSSION: (Optional)
What is your gut reaction to all of this? What do you notice? What strikes you as odd or missing? What do you worry about?
CHOICE 1I: (Organization or NGO Perspective): You represent an organization working in Haiti and need $50,000. Youve been in operation for at least three years. You need to demonstrate the three most important criteria for being selected. Your policies? Transparency? Proven track record? Sustainability? Capacity for scale? Community support? Your ability to demonstrate self-reliance? A breakthrough on a consistent barrier that others have not managed to accomplish? Your capacity to collaborate and pool resources with other civil society organizations? Read this New York Times article: How Charities Used Donations for Haiti Acknowledging that there is donor-fatigue and suspicion out there, youll need to demonstrate your credibility by focusing on those three criteria
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Your group also has to scan the field to determine what other organizations are doing similar work and how your organization fills a particular niche or is known for its ability to collaborate Youll have a template for creating a slide show using Google Presentation. This will allow you to collaborate if you want to work as a group AND make it possible for the public to see your work in real time. The template for your group presentation can be found here. Theres a place for notes (like in Powerpoint). Feel free to customize it.
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New research on girls and women in disaster risk reduction (DRR) has revealed a shift from reactive disaster response to long-term proactive disaster risk and vulnerability reduction (Making Disaster Risk Reduction Gender-Sensitive, pg. 2), along with a need for a genderfocused, rather than women-focused, approach designed to strengthen sustainable development. Disasters do not discriminate. Women hold up half the sky; men hold up the other.
Between Bulls and Mosquitoes: Teachers Without Borders (earthquake science and safety) Parsquake: Earthquake Education in the Global Persian Community Making Disaster Risk Reduction Gender-Sensitive: United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) Toward a new post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (Recommended)
GUEST SPEAKERS/WEBINARS
Depending upon scheduling of speakers listed in Part I, we may extend or reschedule webinars. Stay tuned.
Do You See it Now? I am Change | Girls Education & Public Health (Part 1)
WEEK 5 KEY THEMES: The Data of Development and Girls Education | The U.N. Millennium Development Goals: Progress and Challenges DUE DATES and CHECKLIST
Background/Overview Readings and Media Discussion Post
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Webinar: Iftikher Mahmood, MD, FAACP (exact date to be announced) Writing and Activities Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum produced by the Pearson Foundation
Meet the Writer from Afghanistan: (Zarghuna Kargar: Aminas Story Girl Rising) Ending Child Marriage Via Education: (Care video) Standing Up to Early Marriage: Melka (video from 10x10) Girls Health and Education: Igniting Change Worldwide (1-hour video recommended) Sheryl WuDunn: Our Century's Greatest Injustice: (TED video from author of Half the Sky)
DISCUSSION: MY QUESTION IS
Post your reaction to the readings with a question, starting with: My Question: XXXX. An example: My Question: Why is so little spent on preventative public health education in the development world? Please refer to the readings when explaining why you have asked this question. Please limit your response to paragraph, plus responses to two colleagues posts.
WEBINAR
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Iftikher Mahmood, MD, FAAP Founder, Hope Foundation for Women & Children of Bangladesh. We often hear about the global agencies and the mass efforts in development. This is a small organization working in one of the poorest communities in the most densely populated country in the world. Born in Coxs Bazar, a small seaside port town in Bangladesh, Dr. Mahmood completed both his medical training in Bangladesh and his Pediatric Residency at Brooklyn Hospital in New York. Well learn more about his work and what he needs to make a difference in the community where he was born.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Were going to look at public health assets, as well as liabilities, in a community we choose. (3 pages, maximum). Heres how this will work:
Consider your community in light of public health, education, and girls. Choose one public health issue that means something to you. Describe the problem. Cite research from articles, databases, and articles in local publications Draw a circle 50 miles or kilometers around the your community in order to discover what public health education ASSETS (people, programs, and projects) are directly accessible to your community (particularly girls) around this issue. EXAMPLE: Port Harcourt, Nigeria | HIV-AIDS infections of youth (ages 14-23) within 50 kilometers | Assets: mobile vans that demonstrate condom use; health workers dispatched from the local hospital; school training in both the science of HIV-AIDS and relationships between men and women.
What are your communitys assets to address this public health issue and education issue, particularly for girls?
NOTES: Copy the template (Appendix II) to help you along Give yourself a time limit for researching this because it can feel like a never-ending experience
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survivors of different disasters, as well as guidance on preventing or responding to future disasters. InSTEDD - Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters (InSTEDD) is a non-profit collaborative organization focused on the design and use of open source technology tools to help partners enhance collaboration and improve information flow to better deliver critical services to vulnerable populations during man-made crises or natural disasters. Open ISES - This software development project and associated community are dedicated to creating free & open source software, tools and instructional materials for the Emergency Services Community, Civilian Emergency Response Teams, and others Sahana Foundation Projects - A free and open source Disaster Management system addressing the common coordination problems during a disaster from finding missing people, managing aid, managing volunteers, tracking camps effectively between government agencies, non-government organizations (NGO), and the victims themselves Ushahidi and Crowdmap - A non-profit tech organization & project specializing in developing free & open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping data related to man-made crises and natural disasters.
He was Strong, but I was Stronger | Girls Education and Public Health (Part 1I)
WEEK 6 KEY THEMES: Data on Gender Equality | Gender Violence DUE DATES and CHECKLIST
Background/Overview, Readings, and Media Conversations and Connections Writing and Activities Please see the Girl Rising Curriculum produced by the Pearson Foundation
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Yasmins Story: Meet the Writer from Egypt: Mona Eltahawy Screening Tool to Identify Female Survivors of Gender-Based Violence: (article) Why Tackling Violence Will Unleash the Potential of Millions of Girls (Girl Effect infographic) Gender Equality Must be a Development Priority in Its Own Right: The Guardian World Bank Education Statistics and www.GapMinder.org (data tables)
WRITING (NONE)
The reading/data analysis is dense this week. Focus on the conversation and connection. There are no other additional writing assignments this week.
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RUKSANAs story involves access to education (India has the largest number of children out of school), but it does not end there. It certainly intersects with public health (the disasters that can befall the homeless in megacities), but here too safer streets do not an education make. Nor her story about disaster mitigation, though dense populations in megacities are particularly vulnerable. Its about the connection between poverty and human rights, economic development and dignity, education and empowerment. Here, two organizations shine: The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) is spreading solutions born in Bangladesh to 10 other countries around the world a global leader in creating opportunity for the worlds poor. What started out as a limited relief operation in 1972 in a remote village of Bangladesh has turned into the largest development organization in the world. (BRAC website) The Grameen Foundation helps the worlds poorest, especially women, improve their lives and escape poverty by helping to provide access to appropriate financial services (such as small loans and savings accounts), new ways to generate income, and important information about their health, crops and finances. (Grameen website).
Now theres nothing to stop me. Nothing in the world. Nothing in the universe.
(Mariama Sierra Leone, Girl Rising) MARIAMA is a modern young woman, comfortable with technology and herself, but she lives within a context that, initially, thwarts her ambitions to be of service to others. She perseveres, nonetheless because of mentors. Mentors and networks are the key to social change, and so this last session addresses the power in numbers. These past eight weeks, weve touched on four themes in the field of girls education: (1) access to education, (2) public health and education (3) education in emergencies, and (4) education and empowerment. One may be thinking, I know more, but now what? These next two sessions are devoted to womens empowerment and change.
Ruksanas Story: Girl Rising (video) Women Deliver (website and organization) Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women CEDAW) Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee BRAC (website) Grameen (website) Interview with Meet the Writer from Sierra Leone: (Aminatta Forna Girl Rising) Partnerships for Girls Education: OXFAM One Billion Rising: Global campaign against violence against women and girls Girl Effect The Headlines
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Recommended
The Gender Audit Handbook: Interaction - recommended Is Global Development the Answer to Ending Poverty in the Developing World? (The Guardian) SEE Model (Simulations in Equity for Education): World Bank recommended
Part 1I: Connecting and Collaborating Organizations and networks matter, and they need you, as you probably have seen when doing the assignment on funding (donor or recipient organization). Heres what I would like you to do: Join BRAC, Grameen, or any other global womens network focusing on development and education Identify an area that stirs your personal or professional aspirations Participate in a conversation and describe the nature of the conversations you have joined there Post a discussion topic on what youve learned (you can be quite brief, but include a link to the discussion or organization)
DISCUSSION (Optional) WHAT HAS CHANGED? Earlier in the course (the survey), I asked you to write down your list of how you ranked the four issues. Please take another look at that list. How does it feel? Has it changed? Strengthened your conviction?
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A Final Note
Thank you so very much for participating in this course. Together, we have created a new community, and though we may not have been able to meet each other faceto-face, weve met this global issue headon. From here, well grow and strengthen the course and, I hope, grow and strengthen our ties to each other. All good things begin in hospitality and, for the time being, end in gratitude. On the Girls Need to Know site, please post a thank you to your colleagues for their efforts on behalf of girls education, worldwide.
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Your Name Date Course: Educating Girls Johns Hopkins University School of Education and Teachers Without Borders
MY COMMUNITY ASSETS
NAME OF COMMUNITY
What kind of community it is, where.details
Participation
Participation and discussions are included in student grading and evaluation. The instructor will clearly communicate expectations and grading policy in the course syllabus. Students who are unable to participate in the online sessions for personal, professional, religious, or other reasons are encouraged to contact me to discuss alternatives.
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the School of Educations platform goes down, for example, we may have to change the normal academic schedule and/or make appropriate changes to course structure, format, and delivery.
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