Global Classroom - Socially Responsible Leadership

This semester we are experimenting with yet another new initiative.  We have been cooperating with a course from the University of Maryland for a number of years.  Ours is a service-learning course with Socially Responsible Global Leadership.  Maryland’s is a course on Global Leadership.  We have 5 joint classes conducted jointly, in a global classroom format, through video conferencing.  For the rest of the time, each of us conduct our own teaching activities.  This format is not new.  

What is new is that, for the first time, we have opened our course to students from member universities of the University Social Responsibility Network.  Hence we are getting students from Xian Jiaotung University and Sichuan University in Mainland China, Kyoto University from Japan, and University of Pretoria from South Africa.  This is on top of our own students from Hong Kong, Korea, Kazakhstan, Mainland China, India and Taiwan.  This truly a cosmopolitan class. 

This year, we put the students to work on refugees.  They are split into 6 groups, with multiple nationalities in each group.  A student from Hong Kong can be working with a student from USA, another from Mainland China, and another from South Africa.  They can choose refugees from a specific country who are in another country, in transit or settled.  These include Afghans in Canada, Afghans in Germany, Somalians in Kenya,  hundreds of refugees cramped on a small boat on an open sea. etc.  They research on the issue, and make a proposal for a presentation on the group chosen.  At least 2 groups decided to present their case as the experience of a 16 year old girl living as a refugee in a foreign country, using realistic situations to issue their experience. There are lots of creative use of research, storytelling, narration, maps, photos, videos, animations, virtual exhibits, …  For example, at one point, a refugee fleeing from Somalia to Kenya was asked to fill in a health form, in a language, terminologies and concepts that she does not understand, …  When one is staring at such a form in front of you, knowing that filling it out properly has a great bearing on your future, how is one supposed to handle that?  

There is an interesting twist in the teaching team as well.  In the past, the joint course has been taught by 2 Chinese professors from PolyU, jointly with 2 Americans from Maryland.  At one point we had a Korean-black female professor from Maryland, but by and large they are white Americans.   This year Dr. G and myself stay mainly in the background.  Instead, teaching from our side is taken up mostly by Dr. S, who was originally from Mainland China subsequently educated in the USA, together with K, who has more experience in SL than almost everybody else in Hong Kong. On the Maryland side we have a teacher who was originally from Mainland China.  Hence the joint teaching team itself is a mix of background from Hong Kong, Mainland China and the USA.  

That is truly, a global, cross-cultural class on social responsibility and leadership.  It has become a vehicle on which we experiment with new pedagogies.  A lot of effort and resources has been put into it.  And the results have been exciting and encouraging.  More is going to come.  We are planning some new twists for the next cohort already. Another offering in the coming semester is going to involve some in person service projects, if the pandemic and the social distancing relaxes.