Project Look Sharp has been asked by the government of Bhutan to train educators in media and information literacy.
Project Look Sharp’s Director of Curriculum and Staff Development, Chris Sperry, has been asked by the government of Bhutan to train educators in media and information literacy. Chris will be traveling to the remote Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas at the end of January 2012 where he will work with officials from the Ministry of Information and Media and Bhutanese educators.
Bhutan is the last nation in the world to introduce television (1999) and is attempting to enter into modernity in a conscious and thoughtful way that is consistent with its cultural values. Bhutan’s popular monarch, Jigme Wangchuck, abdicated in 2008 and the nation is moving forward in developing civic and democratic institutions. Bhutan is known for both its commitment to conservation (40% of the territory is national parks) and for developing approaches to modernity that reflect its Buddhist culture. Rather than relying on traditional economic indicators of progress, Bhutan has developed a new quality of life indicator, GNH - Gross National Happiness.
Chris has been asked to help Bhutan’s education system integrate critical thinking and media literacy using Project Look Sharp’s inquiry-based model for “constructivist media decoding.” Project Look Sharp was founded at Ithaca College by Professor Cyndy Scheibe in 1995, with a mission of supporting educators to integrate media literacy and critical thinking throughout the curriculum. With support from the College and private foundations Project Look Sharp has produced and posted online over a dozen media literacy curriculum kits that focus on media constructions of information and understanding related to specific content issues, including The Middle East, Presidential Campaigns, War, Peace, Social Justice, Martin Luther King Jr., Endangered Species, Creativity and Aging, Critical Thinking and Health, and Global Warming. This January 2012 Project Look Sharp published its sixteenth curriculum kit, Media Construction of Sustainability: Food, Water and Agriculture. These materials have been downloaded tens of thousands of times by educators around the world and are available free online at www.projectlooksharp.org or hard copies can be purchased from the Ithaca College Bookstore.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20120111163400860