From Human to Humankind: Facilitating Global Awareness Among the Gifted

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the world has become a global village. The notion of world workers constantly migrating from one country and continent to another, has become commonplace. The ever-changing world impacts not only every country in the world but, indeed, every human being, including the gifted. Little wonder then that, in 1975, scholars demonstrated appreciation for the need to move beyond national concerns and to start focusing on the bigger picture; to embrace the notion of a global village and celebrate global awareness. George Parkyn said that our “very survival depends upon a new concern with the quality of human life and its relationship to the finite world we inhabit” (in Conceptual curriculum 2004: 1). Since then the development of global awareness has been increasingly highlighted by a number of authors (Rogalla, 2003; Tallent-Runnels, 2007; Terry, 2008, Volk, 2007 & 2008). Roeper (2008) said the term global awareness “is too limiting, it is really Universal Awareness with which we are concerned”. Sheard (2008) concluded that children who have lived “outside their passport countries” (third culture kids, or TCKs), could be a resource to the gifted community through the lessons the TCKs have learned. She also said that “instilling global awareness in gifted children might have social and emotional costs as well as benefits”.