Teaching with Educational Technology: A Profile of the Pacific

Abstract

The 21st century brings the Pacific islands unwelcome currents. Global economic integration will strip Pacific islands of trade preferences. Radical weather change, reef damage, and sea level rise will push natural resources toward extinction. To buck the tide, we do not need business-as-usual leaders. We need mould-breaking, heroic leadership. Education is key. We had better start teaching our kids political science from the cradle. In the next century, social ills rooted in economic injustice and flourishing in ethnic and religious strife will continue to generate desperation in the world’s poverty pockets. Instead of stirring clouds of human rights allegations, we must learn to live with the migrants and refugees fleeing to our shores. Television, the great leveller, homogenises cultural values in every corner of the world. Indigenous language erodes. Island cultures are swamped. The heroic leader will need a worldly education and a “bend-your-back for others” apprenticeship in traditional island service. (Bruce, 1998, p. 126)