Globalization Phenomena
Introduction
The speed of globalization phenomena has created an impact not only in the economic, social and political dimensions of human life, but also in the area of education (see Winarti, 2011). As companies become multinational, people become more mobile and vice-versa.
This requires schools and teachers to able to accommodate children from various backgrounds and prepare them for life in a complex and diverse world.Responding to that complexity, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (http://www.p21.org/) indicates that the basic knowledge expected by students in this new millennium should include:
English Language, Reading Comprehension, Writing English, Mathematics, Science, Government/Economics, Humanities/Arts, Foreign Languages, History/Geography. Meanwhile, the applied skills needed are critical thinking/problem solving, oral communication, written communication, teamwork/collaboration, diversity appreciation, information technology application, leadership, creativity/innovation, lifelong learning/self-direction, professionalism/work ethics, and ethics/social responsibility.
While those 21st century skills are urgently required by the modern students, these requirements are often challenging for future Indonesian teachers studying in elementary school teacher education programs. Years of learning experience under the centralized government has resulted in the students being in the mode of the blue collar workers’ mentality, requiring detailed instructions for every single project (see Winarti, 2012).
Being in such a condition, the researcher, who is simultaneously a lecturer with curriculum development responsibilities, was motivated to introduce emancipatory education, which is known to be used widely in developing countries (see Gerdes, 1985; Gordon, 1986; Zeuner, 2013), to deal with the gap between the required and the present mode of teaching and learning.
This type of liberation education was introduced in the Curriculum and Learning Development course, which is a compulsory subject for future teachers, especially future elementary school teachers known in Indonesia as the student teachers of Pendidikan Guru Sekolah Dasar (PGSD).
For a detailed description of this study’s theoretical framework, the sections that follow discuss the concepts and goals of emancipatory education and the design of the PGSD Curriculum and Learning Development course. The article, then, considers research methods, results and discussion, conclusions and recommendations.
