Making Connections in Challenging Times - The Transformative Potential of Poetry for Critical Global Education

Abstract

The transformative role of global education (GE) has come to the fore in recent years in the face of increasingly complex and challenging global development realities. At the heart of this is a call for learning which enables people to make connections beyond simplifications but which address divisions and inequalities. Despite the rhetoric, GE is not always as critical or transformative as it aspires to be. Here, I focus on how poetry can support educators to make connections with complexity, diversity and alternatives that, I argue, are needed to address contemporary global challenges. Inspired, in part, by the proliferation of interest in poetry since the COVID-19 pandemic, I draw on research conducted with global education facilitators in Ireland in 2016. Through the discussion of a few examples, I invite educators to reflect on how they might engage with poetry to enhance the transformative potential of GE in their own contexts.