ISJ November 2012: Teaching about migration in an international school?

Victoria Ryan

Abstract:

Do we need to teach about migration in international schools? After all, the vast majority of our students and teachers are migrants themselves and are, therefore, personally acquainted with the highs and lows of the migration experience. Migration is a widely debated and controversial issue in our global communities that already has many thousands of column inches dedicated to it in our newspapers and many hours of documentaries and news programmes on our TV channels; should we create space in our geography curriculum to discuss this topic further?

It is precisely because migration is such a hot topical issue, and is so widely discussed in the media, that we need to bring it into our classrooms in order to provide some balance and objectivity to the topic. Both The Geographical Association (GA) and Oxfam say that we should not shy away from teaching about migration simply because it is a ‘controversial’ issue, and that students should be encouraged to explore their own feelings about this issue in the safety of a classroom environment.