Name: Megan Boimann-Hennies

Website Used: Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Lesson/Unit and Content Area: Peace-building Taking Home Lessons Learned in Africa;
Reading/Social Studies
(http://pulitzercenter.org/education/lesson-plan/peacebuilding-taking-home-lessons-learned-africa)

Assessment for its Global Competence:
The purpose of the lesson, Peace-building Taking Home Lessons Learned in Africa published by the
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is to help students understand the issue of peace-building on multiple
levels. Likewise, the lesson also promotes several skills that enhance global competence. First, the lesson
asks students to define peace-building, first on the individual level, and then on a group level, thus
helping students to recognize and understand differences in interpretations at the local level that can
then be applied at the global level. As the presentation in Week 3 noted, the first step in global
competency is to develop cultural self-awareness. The introductory activity asks students to develop this
skill through the definition of peace-building and its relevance in the 21
st
century.
Next, the lesson asks students to conduct research on four African societies, including their culture,
history, geography, economics, and demographics in order to better understand the issues facing each
one, as well as to identify the commonalities of between the four regions. Students are also encouraged
to explore how sustainable peace, as defined by the United Nations, is encouraged in these four
countries (Sierra Leone, Burundi, the Central African Republic, and Guinea Bissau). This activity
reinforces the idea presented in this weeks discussion in that it encourages students to recognize
similarities, and to identify and appreciate differences. Students are then asked to formulate an opinion
on the notion of sustainable peace as demonstrated in the four case studies. By asking students to
defend or refute the necessity of peace-building, the lesson encourages students to develop another
aspect of global competency engagement with current global problems and challenges in the hopes of
developing solutions to such issues.
Finally, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie argued that the danger of creating a single story was that it also
created stereotypes, which are not necessarily untrue, but they are indeed incomplete. Moreover,
stereotypes force students to emphasize the differences, and not the similarities. The Peace-building
lesson attempts to avoid such problems by encouraging students to take the global issues faced in Africa
and apply them to local conditions, thus demonstrating that the problems faced in Africa are not some far
off problems that are not faced by American students and communities. Rather, students are encouraged
to critically examine the institutions with their own communities that should promote sustainable peace
governments, schools, and the marketplace and reflect on their success in achieving such goals. If
problems are identified at the local level, students are encouraged to review the success in the four
African case studies and identify aspects that could be applied in their own community, thus encouraging
a new pedagogical approach in which students work together in the community to solve problems based
on earlier examples.
In conclusion, this lesson is proficient in its attempt to develop global competency amongst students. The
members of the class are asked to reflect on their own opinions and values, compare those to the ideas of
others, and then work together to solve local issues based on global examples. In other words, as the
Week 3 presentation noted, students are gaining the ability to interpret cultures in order to adapt
within their own. From a global education perspective, skills such as collaboration, critical analysis of
sources (text and visual), and research skills are all promoted, only enhancing the students future
success in the 21
st
century world. From the perspective of a world history teacher, this is an excellent
lesson that I plan to incorporate into all three of my AP World History classes following the AP World
History exam at the end of the school year. It allows students the time to deeply research topics we may
have only covered briefly earlier in the year and the lesson fits into the larger context of service learning
dedicated to purposes that connect the local to the global. As a government teacher, I also plan to
incorporate this lesson in my senior level classes, but with slightly different topics to make them more
embedded within the government curriculum.