EDUCATING FOR IMPACT
EDUCATING FOR IMPACT
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uring the 2018-2019 academic year, our community examined what it means to be a global citizen through programs and workshops for students and faculty led by noted author and educational consultant, Ms. Homa Sabet Tavangar. Tavangar is the author of Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World. Continued discussion on the issues of global citizenship with Tavangar led to the development of the Academy’s school-wide learning initiative for the 2019-2020 academic year: integration of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) throughout all curricular areas. Seventeen goals form the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 25, 2015. These SDGs address the most pressing environmental, economic, health, educational, and social inequalities threatening humankind and our planet. With a commitment to ensuring that “all human beings can fulfill their potential in dignity and equality” and a determination to “foster peaceful, just, and inclusive societies,” the UN Agenda aligns with the principles of Catholic social teaching and Notre Dame’s Mission, which affirms the dignity of the human person and a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. This year, His Holiness Pope Francis underscored this connection at a joint UN/Vatican conference saying, “… after three and a half years since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, we must be even more acutely aware of the importance of accelerating and
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adapting our actions in responding adequately to both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor - they are connected.” At Notre Dame, faculty and students are exploring and reflecting on the SDGs across the full range of academic disciplines. “Integrating the SDGs throughout the curriculum will deepen our students’ sense of global citizenship, empathy, capacity for problem solving, individual agency, and impact potential,” explains Mrs. Nora Moffat, Director of the Academy’s Center for Global Leadership. “Our students can connect the tenets of Catholic social teaching to the challenges of the global community now, in their future studies, and eventually, in their careers. This is the foundation for change. This is what global citizenship means to Notre Dame.” With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, UN Member States vowed to ensure that “no one will be left behind.” Mrs. Pam Devenney’s middle and upper school dance companies interpreted that pledge through choreography that demonstrated how cooperation, at the local or global level, can help move people forward. “We selected the SDG Reduced Inequalities, and during the dance we drop a rope which some can cross and others cannot,” says junior Jaiden Kennedy. The rope represents humankind’s need for connection. Grace Ganley ’22 adds, “Through the dance movements, you see some people get ahead, while others go slower and fall behind.” The dance resolves as everyone connects to the rope. “At the end of the dance the rope disappears, and we are holding hands to support each other,” says Kennedy. The upper school dance company has been selected by audition to perform “No One Left Behind” at the West Chester University Winter Dance Festival in January 2020.
