UCLA partners with UNESCO to host conference promoting education
Carlos Torres, the first UCLA Chair in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, will focus on facilitating research and teaching. (UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies)
By Catherine Liberty Feliciano
Feb. 5, 2016 8:00 a.m.
UCLA will host an international conference and reception on Monday to celebrate the inaugural partnership between the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the University of California.
UNESCO approved UCLA to have a UNESCO Chair in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education in July. As part of UNESCO’s global network, which consists of more than 700 universities, UCLA’s students and faculty will be able to collaborate with other scholars and further the organization’s research in global education.
UNESCO is the UN’s education organization that aims to achieve world peace by increasing equal access to education, academic freedom and scientific collaboration worldwide. The organization promotes global citizenship education, which aims to create students who feel actively responsible for the global community.
Carlos Torres, the first UCLA UNESCO chair, said his main responsibilities are facilitating research and teaching. He added he intends to use UNESCO’s network of academics and affiliated schools to learn more about teaching practices in different cultures.
Torres, an education professor in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, said he plans to conduct a comparative study involving the 20,000 schools associated with UNESCO to determine the best teaching practices that can be applied worldwide.
He added he thinks studying how cultural values influence students’ perception of their roles in regional and global issues can improve scholars’ understanding of global citizenship.
Torres said he also wants to create a class at UCLA for undergraduates about global learning and citizenship education. He added he plans to develop a stronger focus on how students learn in UCLA classes, so they can question how they learn best and consider alternate methods.
UCLA created the Environmental Education Initiative for Californian children as part of the partnership, said John McDonald, director of the Sudikoff Institute at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
As part of the initiative, the UCLA Lab School and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability will collaborate to determine the best practices in K-12 environmental education, he added.
Torres said he thinks teaching sustainable development is important to teaching global citizenship because the global community shapes the environment, and the environment affects it in turn.
“(Global citizenship education) contributes, not only to the development of peace in a highly diverse world, but to peace with the environment,” he said.
Proceeds from Monday’s reception will go toward the initiative.
Scholars will present research about global learning and citizenship before the reception, which will honor Torres’s appointment and award the first UCLA Global Citizen Award to philanthropist Courtney Ross.
During the event, UNESCO director Irina Bokova will speak about the organization’s relationship with UCLA, McDonald said. The partnership will last four years, before UCLA will have to reapply to continue its work with the organization.
Compiled by Catherine Liberty Feliciano, Bruin senior staff.
