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People, Pope and Planet: A Hermeneutic and Spectacle Analysis of Laudato Si’

for Global Citizenship Educators

William Gaudelli

Teachers College, Columbia University

Abstract: Global citizenship education presents a number of challenges for educators,

including the wide variety of texts available to be studied. I explore Laudato Si’, Pope

Francis’ 2015 statement on global warming and human development. Laudato Si’ includes

contents that are broad, connective, and significant/relevant, making it a strong

candidate for inclusion in global citizenship education. I examine the text via two

theoretical inquiries—hermeneutics and spectacle—to recommend instructional

practices appropriate to this text and many similar ones. The pedagogical

recommendations focus on supporting teachers engaged in global citizenship education.

Key words: hermeneutic theory, spectacle, global citizenship education, global

warming/climate change.

Teaching for global citizenship is challenging. The wide berth of content, the range of skills, the

ever-changing nature of global discourse, the cacophony of texts and voices, and the ambiguity

of global citizenship itself: all of these factors and more confound efforts to educate for and about

global citizenship. Frameworks for global citizenship education [GCE, hereafter] developed by the

United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Oxfam, and the

Maastricht Declaration, among others, provide broad guidance to sort through what is and is not

GCE, along with support materials for teachers and schools so inclined (O’Loughlin, 2002; Oxfam,

2015; UNESCO, 2014). There remains uncertainty about how one teaches for and about global

citizenship, however. My aim in this piece is not to dispel this ambiguity or resolve all of the

problems associated with GCE. Rather, I offer a way of teaching global texts befitting GCE through

two analytical spaces—hermeneutic and spectacle—to model recommended instructional

approaches for reading global texts.

What is a global text? People come into contact with a wide range of texts, such as

advertisements, memes, reports, news articles, and social media links throughout a normal,

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digitally connected day. Sorting out which warrant attention is a teacher’s problem as classroom

time and student attention are limited. I suggest three criteria for educators to use when

choosing global texts appropriate for classroom use. First, the text must have a broad scope in

terms of what it is about and its intended audience. These are texts that engage with issues that

potentially affect a large segment of the worlds’ population rather than one isolated area or

concern. This choice presents a certain danger, for texts with a broad scope may not attend to

issues of less breadth but of grave significance for particular groups, thus teachers ought to

consider the range of materials put before students comprehensively over a course of study so

as to invite counterpoints and avoid marginalizing perspectives. Second, the text should be

connective to other issues or problems and should readily relate and connect to a wider context.

Third, the text ought to have relevance and significance to the thinking and potential action of

student learners (Gaudelli & Siegel, 2010). Some examples of global texts include the Sustainable

Development Goals 2015-2030, a World Health Organization bulletin on Ebola, or one of the

many manifestos issued by ISIS. These texts, among myriad others, provide rich learning

opportunities to develop students’ understanding of the world. Using this sieve, teachers can

choose texts that are worthy of already scarce classroom time. I selected the recent encyclical

written by Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, since it is broad in the scope

of global issues it addresses, connective to a variety of social, environmental, and political

contexts that surround it, and significant/relevant to the lives and interests of students. Laudato

Si’, which translates to ‘praise be to you,’ is the Vatican’s official statement about global warming.

In exploring how Laudato Si’ might be used by educators interested in promoting GCE, I pursue

two lines of analysis, a hermeneutic and spectacle path, both revealing ways of teaching for and

about global citizenship.

Background: GCE and Laudato Si’

UNESCO’s conception of GCE provides a useful starting point for educators wishing to engage in

GCE:

Global citizenship education aims to empower learners to engage and assume active roles

both locally and globally to face and resolve global challenges and ultimately to become

proactive contributors to a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable

world. (UNESCO, 2014)

This admittedly extensive conception has a few noteworthy features. First, the focus on

empowering learners to become citizens who see the world problematically and act to improve

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the situation socially is notable. This represents a fundamental shift in education away from the

substance, contents, or inputs toward processes of thinking about what students are able to do

with knowledge and content developed in schools. The breadth of content is also significant in

UNESCO’s conceptualization as they implicitly aggregate human rights education, education for

sustainability, intercultural education, peace education, and a variety of others to the wider

service of GCE (Gaudelli & Schmidt, 2017). Multimodal forms of learning and resources are

highlighted and participatory modalities are encouraged to harness connective technologies.

Also, there is recognition that tools alone will not create the GCE currently required, as UNESCO

calls attention to the cultivation of dispositions of openness, caring, and empathy accompanied

by critical, creative, and innovative thinking. This attention to soft skills and orientations is

noteworthy as it suggests a less mechanistic and formulaic approach to GCE, one that embraces

the uncertain terrain of emotional and aesthetic landscapes. Yet, there are problems with

UNESCO’s conception as well as strengths. The phrase “face and solve global challenges” may be

alienating since most people are unable to see the direct results of their work, even when aimed

at solving global problems. While the phrase is intended as a call for collective action, the

tendency to read texts as pertaining to individuals is typical. Thus, one might not be able to

imagine how one’s individual choices and actions may contribute ultimately to a global solution

(see Gaudelli, 2016, chapter 2).

Environment and sustainable development education (SDE) represent a species of GCE of

concern to this article given its relationship to Laudato Si’. As Spring (2004) notes, there are four

typical varieties of global education in circulation, including nation-building, global free market

preparation (e.g., neoliberal), globalizing morality (e.g., human rights education), and

environmental/sustainability education that focuses on human-nature interdependencies.

Schattle (2008) notes in his review of numerous interviews a similar typology, one that includes

environmental concerns as a specific type of global citizenship in wide circulation. Oxley and

Morris (2013) note, however, that while environmental education is in the orbit of what

constitutes GCE, this type is “uncommon” compared to the neoliberal and nationalistic varieties

of GCE (p. 313). They explain that one of the confounding dimensions of environmental/

sustainability education is a presupposition inherent within more radical versions of the

discourse that attributes rights and protections to “the environment” as a type of sovereign

entity. This perspective troubles the default assumption of many that GCE should and ought to

concern people and their development, primarily, and thus may explain the relative diminution

of environmental/sustainable development discourse within GCE.

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Pope Francis offered Laudato Si’ [LS, hereafter] in July, 2015, a dramatic letter detailing his

interpretation of Catholic teachings on social development and global warming. LS was leaked a

few days prior to its planned release by forces within the Vatican who wished to undercut the

media spectacle Pope Francis intended to create. LS is somewhat surprising in that Francis has

put the Catholic Church on record on an issue that remains politically controversial around the

world, since acting to reduce carbon outputs demands significant economic and social changes.

But Francis’ tendency to broach controversy has become characteristic given other moments in

his papacy—including washing the feet of homeless people at Easter, the signal of openness to

priests marrying, and the recent decision to allow priests to absolve abortion decisions through

confession—all important decisions signaling the direction of Francis’ papacy (“Pope Francis to

Wash…” 2013; “Pope Says Favors…” 2014; Squires, 2015; Yardley & Goodstein, 2015; Yardley &

Povoledo, 2015).

Encyclicals are a means of outreach that serve as periodic synthetic statements about Catholic

doctrine. These “letters in circulation” are intended to offer guidance on a variety of concerns,

some tied directly to interpreting Church teachings, others oriented to the wider expanse of

humanity and its social conditions. The Church has used encyclicals since 1891 to offer teachings

and commentary on social life (Maina, 2011). For example, in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (The Social

Concern of the Church, 1987), Pope John Paul II pointed to grave and growing economic

disparities in the world as a threat to peace, freedom, and human dignity. According to Maina,

“Through the common good teaching… the integral wellbeing of all people is viewed as central

to the Church teaching” (p. 5). Sollicitudo Rei Socialis was in fact written to commemorate and

update Populorum Progressio (The Development of Peoples, 1967), which demonstrates ongoing

attention to social issues that transcend Catholic faith and positioning to address all of humanity.

These articulations have been referred to as the social doctrine of the church.

The social doctrine of the church has often stood in opposition to modern society, as the latter is

premised on free market liberalism and the economic freedom of individuals, upholding atavistic

accumulation over the social good. “The Church, in its social teachings, continually stigmatizes

the individualism of modern society and the supposed virtues of the free market for ensuring

social stability and order” (Laurent, 2010, p. 520). LS falls neatly within this tradition of raising

concerns about economic freedom that eschews a robust commitment to the commonwealth.

Francis’ focus on the environment, however, offers prominence to ecology that adds to the

Church’s extant social doctrine tradition. In Populorum Progressio (1967), for example, there is

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no mention of “ecology” or “environment,” and when the Earth is invoked, it is situated as being

squarely within the dominion of humankind:

Now if the earth truly was created to provide man with the necessities of life and the tools

for his own progress, it follows that every man has the right to glean what he needs from

the earth. (p. 4)

Thus, LS represents a significant departure in Church teachings about the environment, leaning

away from stewardship and possession and toward interrelationship and mutuality.

A Hermeneutic Analysis of Laudato Si’ and Teaching Suggestions

In LS, Pope Francis displays a reverence for nature on its own terms rather than in reference to

humanity, a significant revision of the social doctrine encyclicals of the 20th century that focused

exclusively on human development and viewed the Earth as being at the hands of humankind.

Francis elevates the environment to something more than resources and repositories. The

environment is for Francis a sovereign entity comprised of myriad, interdependent species each

with dignity in the eyes of God:

If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if

we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the

world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set

limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that

exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of

Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a

refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled. (p. 11)

Nature for Francis is a sanctified space that ought to induce awe and wonderment, as compared

to a purely economic way of thinking about the environment as filled with resources to be

extracted and used by people:

Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will

never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost forever. The

great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us,

thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey

their message to us. We have no such right. (p. 25)

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Francis’ attempt to reinvigorate elements of the Church that stand against economic modernism

reflects similar movements in Judaic Kabbalah and Islamic Sufism, mystic traditions that pre-date

modernity and have experienced a revival in an era of rapid economic globalization (Cohen, 2003;

Lawton, 2011; Saberi, 2006; Suliman, 2016; Zajac, 2014).

LS is more than a call to better appreciate the wonder of nature and refigure our relationship to

it, however, as Francis also makes a radical appeal to forego consumption:

We know how unsustainable is the behaviour of those who constantly consume and

destroy, while others are not yet able to live in a way worthy of their human dignity. That

is why the time has come to accept decreased growth in some parts of the world, in order

to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth. (p. 141)

The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and

consume. It becomes almost impossible to accept the limits imposed by reality. In this

horizon, a genuine sense of the common good also disappears. (p. 150)

Francis’ invokes degrowth discourse along with the commonwealth notion of previous social

doctrine encyclicals (Latouche, 1996). He suggests that spiritual fulfillment through being in touch

with nature is axiomatic to human satisfaction. Francis contends that global warming is a direct

result of modernity’s accumulative bent and that an earnest conversation about what constitutes

enough, in relation to material goods and economic growth, is desperately needed globally,

especially among people who are already affluent by global comparison.

Francis’ critique differs from advocates of sustainable development. His argument indicts the

global economic system, not just the excessive use of carbon by individuals and states in the

global North. Michael Löwy (2016) notes that Francis does not focus on individual behaviors but

the “system of commercial relations and ownership which is structurally perverse” (p. 50). This

move is significant given its radical nature; namely, a challenge to the consumption/disposal cycle

that feeds ever-increasing economic growth amidst a growing North-South wealth gap and a

beleaguered, warming planet. The more politically palatable call for “sustainability” is actually

impugned by Francis as a ruse, as Löwy notes, one that “absorbs the language and values of

ecology into the categories of finance and technocracy, and the social and environmental

responsibility of businesses often gets reduced to a series of marketing and image-enhancing

measures” (p. 52). Francis asserts that sustainable development has been an insufficient

intervention, and a more direct, systemic reconfiguration is urgently needed to rebalance what

rampant economic globalization has wrought.

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Francis’ criticism of North-style economic development also connects to his skepticism regarding

scientific ways of knowing. Francis and the Church are by no means anti-science but are

concerned with blind adherence to an economic system without a robust accounting of its

benefits and consequences, an approach similar to his thinking about science. The rhetorical

distance Francis offers in LS from science may also help explain why his voice has garnered such

widespread adoration in a time of rising fatigue with science-as-usual. Neither Francis nor the

Church is seeking an end to science or global capitalism, per se, but rather a recalibration of how

science, economic development, and the biosphere are balanced in relation to each other. As

Jeffrey Sachs (2015) notes:

Laudato Si’ offers a compelling, eloquent and reasoned appeal to a new way of

understanding, an inspiring call on humanity to use reason and faith to create a world in

which the economy is once again bound by the common good, and in which the common

good embraces the reverence for the physical Earth and other species [emphasis added].

Francis echoes concerns raised in educational research and research among other social service

professions about the limitations of scientific ways of knowing of people in complex

organizations. Fields like education, healthcare, and social work have been beset with scientism,

the belief that scientific methodology is the only path to knowledge creation, a stance which

diminishes situational and contextual realms of knowledge-making that have long informed

these fields (St. Pierre, 2006), not to mention discourses of revelation that are foundational to

religious teachings.

There are other glimpses of Francis’ efforts to tamp down the excesses of scientism as the sole

basis of planetary climate discussions and economic development. His use of the phrase “well up

spontaneously” invokes an embodied response that resounds as true, a turn of phrase of

particular interest. His word choice has important parallels to the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer

(1960/2011), who writes of the truth “shining forth” around interpretive moments, a type of

possession by truth that makes it self-evident, beyond empirical proof or confirmation (p. 478).

The modernist division of rational/a-rational and non-rational selves is treated skeptically

through Francis’ article, as he suggests a more holistic way of knowing and being that includes,

but is not limited to, science. And while Gadamer could not justifiably be considered a post-

empirical thinker, he was indeed sharply critical of the hubris that too often accompanies

Western ways of knowing typified by scientific empiricism (Gadamer, 1998). LS posits that rigid

scientific empiricism is alone insufficient to move people to know about and act on global

warming:

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It cannot be maintained that empirical science provides a complete explanation of life,

the interplay of all creatures and the whole of reality. This would be to breach the limits

imposed by its own methodology. If we reason only within the confines of the latter, little

room would be left for aesthetic sensibility, poetry, or even reason’s ability to grasp the

ultimate meaning and purpose of things. (LS, p. 146)

It is worth noting that the second chapter of the encyclical does offer scientific claims about

atmospheric warming. Francis consulted with leading experts on economics and sustainable

development, among them Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University’s Earth Institute. Clearly, he was

concerned that if the whole of the piece spoke to notions of human flourishing in relationship to

the biosphere and the need to limit the excessive, consumptive lifestyles of the global North, that

the text might be diminished. Francis’ focus on the environment, with particular attention to its

mystical and aesthetic qualities, reframes the conversation he wishes to engage. But the

unmistakable thrust of the encyclical draws upon spiritual evidence of inseparability of people

from their environment and the need for the cultivation of human-biosphere relations as familial

(e.g., Francis’ repeated usage of “sister” and “mother” in reference to Earth) and the Earth as a

sovereign entity/body (e.g., the Amazon and Congo as “lungs”) hosting other non-human animals

deserving dignity and respect.

Pope Francis, previously named Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was the first of 266 popes to

choose the mystic1 St. Francis of Assisi as his namesake. Choosing St. Francis was significant, as

this saint from the 13th century represents an earlier version of the Church, one that predates

the modern era. Despite belonging to the Jesuit order, or the Society of Jesus founded by St.

Ignatius Loyola in the 16th century and at the dawn of the modern era, Pope Francis reached back

four centuries prior to venerate a saint who was known for speaking to non-human animals,

singing to plants, and for his love of the natural world. Francis’ choice both to venerate St. Francis

and to author LS signals a significant shift in Catholic teaching, both internally and toward all of

humanity, to value the earth, environment, and its inhabitants for their inherent dignity.

LS as an encyclical offers a textual forum to signal this shift from human development to

environmental sanctity within the church’s social doctrine. As Garry Wills (2015), a Catholic

1 My use of the term mysticism and mystic is not intended in a pejorative sense but rather a descriptive manner,
pointing toward a pattern of religious activity that has been described as ‘mystical’ (see Underwood, 2009/2010).
This description centers on the fact that there is, among all world religions, a desire to move beyond the
immediate and material conditions of life and toward a deeper unity with a deity. The path toward communion is
often characterized by eschewing materiality in favor of a deeper experience in being.

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historian of a critical orientation, notes, following the loss of state power, popes relied on

encyclicals to enunciate beliefs and directions: “The encyclical was the main vehicle for getting

world attention” (p. 118). This has led, however, to encyclical wars among left and right forces

within and outside the church, as “conservatives and liberals picked their favorite parts of

encyclicals to use against each other” (p. 119). Francis’ papacy has been interpreted as a turning

away from the conservative order of his two most recent predecessors, decried in some quarters

and heralded in others. Wills demonstrates, however, that the momentary left/right dust-ups are

relatively minor compared to the seismic change the Church has endured for millennia, not the

least of which is the loss of monarchic control and state authority.

Interpreting encyclicals today, then, it is worth noting this longer trajectory and how the current

iteration fits within it. What may appear to be a monumental shift in church thinking both affirms

some earlier belief (e.g., mysticism) and is rarely as monumental as it may appear within its own

time. The novelties of LS notwithstanding, it would be an error to read the work as fundamentally

out of character with other such papal declarations. Francis cites, for example, numerous other

encyclicals that represent traditional views. To this point, Francis largely views his work as

continuing rather than fundamentally altering the volition of the church’s teachings, knowing

that as a change agent, he is still obligated by the weight of his office to “care for continuity and

minimize disruption… he [Francis] cannot knock the props out from under the throne he sits on”

(Wills, 2015, xviii).

Francis’ work is purposefully not a hermetic text but one that is explicitly ecumenical. What is his

thinking within this layer? Francis is consciously writing a global text, offered as much for those

outside the church as those within or once affiliated with it. LS, like social doctrine encyclicals

that came before, speaks of humanity rather than Catholic humanity. Francis is positioning

himself as a global thought leader, not unlike the Dalai Lama, who reaches far beyond those

within the fold to assume a stance of spiritual leadership in a secular world. But Francis is also

signaling to those who once belonged to the flock and have strayed an assurance that the Church

is committed to a moral sectarian vision, a commitment that requires not being tone deaf to

contemporary social political issues and movements. This can be read as an attempt to overcome

the image of inaction that bedeviled the Church regarding Pope Pius XII’s disturbing silence

during the Holocaust (Coppa, 2011; Phayer, 1998).

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Teaching Suggestions

Educators pursuing interpretations of LS ought to engage students in a central question: What

does the text mean? Related questions might include:

 What is Pope Francis saying in LS?

 Why is he saying that?

 How does he use language (and other encyclical references) to make his claims?

Why?

 How have others responded to LS, both within and beyond the Catholic faith?

These descriptive questions may be dismissed as too didactic to engage students, but a

hermeneutic orientation recognizes that description is deeply interpretive. Description holds out

the possibility that students can connect their personal horizon of understanding—their life

experience—with the wider tradition of humanity around the issues raised in the text. Students

can see themselves, for example, in light of mysticism, materialism, and personal fulfillment,

providing them with an opportunity both to grasp what is being said to weigh those issues in their

own lives.

A second layer of hermeneutic analysis might consider the traditions manifest in LS. The text is

built upon substructures of meaning that are delivered up to the present. Mysticism, for example,

renders a strand of thought that is intelligible in the present and rooted in a tradition of seeing

the world through its soulful and aesthetic aspects. Reading mysticism may seem utterly foreign

to some students, as many are likely to believe that inanimate and non-sentient beings, from

rocks to flora, are not spiritually endowed entities but simply inert objects. Yet, there are traces

of this earlier tradition of thought in everyday commonalities, from the personification of non-

human animals in literature to the imagery of forests being alive.

A third, and by no means exhaustive, layer invites students to read the text connectively,

demonstrating how it is offered in response to and in contradiction with other interpretations.

The “enough” premise of Francis, for instance, points to an ongoing discourse about how

modernity may be facing its own end-time, a rising sentiment against instrumentality and

objectification, along with an agnostic retreat from scientific inquiry as a singular discourse. By

inviting readers to consider climate change differently, focusing less on science and more on

sacredness, the text resounds with the growth of “spirituality without religion” gaining traction

globally.

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Analyzing interpretive layers closely—inside and outside the text, the text as delivered from

history and tradition, and the connectivity of the text to the present—provides a rich reading of

LS that opens up many plausible interpretations. The aim, however, should not be to definitively

assert a true meaning from the text, as this would belie a requisite openness that accompanies

interpretation. Too, this outline of method is applicable to many similar texts, ones that have the

breadth, connectivity, and significance of content that make robustly discursive readings

possible.

In terms of GCE, the encyclical permits many lines of analysis and interpretation. Francis’ focus

on human development, for example, is a critical piece for GCE. Inviting students to read and

interpret other related sources, such as advocates of increased economic development, those

who seek technological solutions to global warming that would allow carbon consumption to

increase exponentially, and climate change deniers, could provide an engaging point-

counterpoint analysis of the assertions embedded in Francis’ text. Too, it would remind students

that global learning requires an encounter with diverse and conflicting perspectives while

nourishing the skills to ascertain validity, trustworthiness, and reasonableness in public

arguments. Lastly, GCE teachers should invite students to engage in the issues raised in LS beyond

time spent in class. Questions like:

 What civic organizations and non-governmental organizations are addressing

global warming?

 What is being done? How have policymakers responded in various governments

around the world?

 What actions have been taken to address global warming and the environment

within our local community?

 What more can be done?

Encouraging students to go beyond merely studying topics is fundamental to engaged citizenship.

Questions like these can spark that type of work to begin, given a sound grasp of the interpretive

dimensions within and connected to this global text.

A Spectacle Analysis of Laudato Si’ and Teaching Suggestions

Pope Francis was clearly aware of the spectacle-media dynamic he hoped to create as he

orchestrated the release as an event and arranged it in the peak of summer in the global North.

Why would Francis play in the space of spectacle when attempting to revive the loss of a

sensibility that itself was precipitated by massive mediation? His strategic deploy of media is

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somewhat ironic given that media is often regarded as a source of humanity’s growing

disassociation from the natural world. Guy Debord’s (1966/2000) writing on spectacle suggests

that separation and isolation are foundational both to modernity and to the rise of a society of

spectacle. Debord writes, “separation is the alpha and the omega of spectacle” (stanza 25).

Separation from the material aspects, or biosphere, of people from their production allows one

to believe they are producing one’s own world, yet “the closer his [sic] life comes to being his [sic]

own creation, the more drastically is he [sic] cut off from that life” (stanza 33). This illustrates

well what Francis is concerned with: the narcissism and dissociative tendencies of hyper-

mediated living. Still, he also recognizes that as a public leader responsible for a vast, global

organization, he is obligated to make thoughtful use of these media tools and phenomenon like

spectacle.

As the world has grown increasingly interconnected in an age of spectacle, media delivers images

immediately from distant places, giving a sense that distance is closing and time is collapsing.

Particularly in the industrial era, where societies began marking time with greater precision and

compression for economic purposes, time has become a commodity like no other (Mosley, 2010).

The unanticipated results are all too familiar as the incessant rush of a now-culture has created

a hyper-society that leads to exhaustion. It is important to note that most youth under the age

of 25 have not experienced a slower world, such that the need for speed—in interactions, activity,

engagement, learning—is all consuming and works interactively with a commodity-driven

economy. Not only is time of the essence, but the desire to draw out the fullness of each moment

is coupled with a desire to spend and consume voraciously. As DeBord (1966/2000) notes:

In its most advanced sectors, a highly concentrated capitalism has begun selling “fully

equipped” blocks of time, each of which is a complete commodity combining a variety of

other commodities. This is the logic behind the appearance, within an expanding

economy of “services” and leisure activities, of the “all-inclusive” purchase of spectacular

forms of housing, of collective pseudo-travel, of participation in cultural consumption and

even of sociability itself, in the form of “exciting conversations,” “meetings with

celebrities” and such like. Spectacular commodities of this type could obviously not exist

were it not for the increasing impoverishment of the realities they parody. And, not

surprisingly, they are also paradigmatic of modern sales techniques in that they may be

bought on credit. (stanza 152)

In an era where there are no quick fixes to long-standing problems of social exclusion, growing

inequality, and a beleaguered environment, current circumstances beg for people patient and

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attentive to long-term changes not realized through inspiring if ephemeral experiences or

fleeting images and texts, no matter how poignant. This temporal disconnect is a confounding

one indeed, and yet time’s compression and consumption are so fundamentally a part of how

society works that educators and citizens are compelled to operate on this terrain: it is

inescapable.

Modernity has offered the illusive prospect of living a kind of bon vivant existence, which

permeates media, advertising, and is parasitic on other domains of culture, such as education

and spirituality. The rise of certain charter schools that borrow heavily on the theatricality of

teaching and learning is one allusion, along with the spectacle of the mega-church movement in

the United States. As people move incessantly from one attempt of living fully to another, a

chaining of experience that devalues ordinary time or everyday existence as being a waste, the

appetite for the “next big event” grows recklessly. As DeBord (1966/2000) notes in this light:

The spectacle manifests itself as an enormous positivity, out of reach and beyond dispute.

All it says is: “Everything that appears is good; whatever is good will appear." The attitude

that it demands in principle is the same passive acceptance that it has already secured by

means of its seeming incontrovertibility, and indeed by its monopolization of the realm

of appearances. (stanza 12)

The desire for events, happenings, moments of fullness, or what Debord has called “fully

equipped blocks of times” (stanza 152) contributes to a sense of waiting for spectacle, an

exhausting vigilance that focuses attention externally in anticipation of the next big moment.

Francis’ engagement with spectacle through LS illuminates the situation of the text. Francis’ call

to deemphasize material life and his desire to “slow down” also suggests an alteration in the pace

of life amidst the rapidity that is media:

Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down [emphasis

added] and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate the positive and sustainable

progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept

away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur. (p. 86)

The contextual irony here is puzzling, as Francis himself creates made-for-media moments while

trying to interrupt them, a tension that illustrates the confounding situation faced by educators

who seek to create habits of reflection within a din of rapid fire, inundating media and schools

intent on technologizing all dimensions of learning. How does one participate in effectively

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reading the world amidst a cacophonous flow of media, texts, and information at the same time

as one attempts to interrupt the deep grammar of how a mediated society functions? Francis’

approach here is to moderate, to remind readers that a return to the past is impossible, but that

a retrieval of different ways of being is still within our grasp.

Teaching Suggestions

The spectacle path in reading LS suggests other opportunities for learning within and beyond it.

How does spectacle work within mediaspace? I first heard about the coming encyclical months

before its release, not unlike a news teaser that one might hear in advance of an event. An

attempt to raise interest in the release of a significant text is used by governments, corporations,

and private organizations to gain attention. The need to anticipate and, in effect, create an event

is crucial in a mediaspace that rewards well-organized and planned events, as these create the

perception of an organization being in control of the event. The Pope, for example, used Twitter

under the handle @Pontifex to excerpt from LS and simultaneously tweeted throughout the day,

adding to the event of the text. The aftermath of the LS release was similar as tens of thousands

of news articles and social media posts resulted from the controversial issues raised by Francis.

GCE educators must be cautious about embracing spectacle given its episodic and exhausting

nature, however. The whiplash of following media’s lead can lead to problems: first, that a

curriculum is being set from afar and by those with an eye toward market-share rather than more

valuable questions such as How do we promote global understanding?; and second, that rapid-

fire attention may give students comfort in the instantaneousness that they experience

otherwise but lack reflective space needed for genuine and careful thought. As Bjørn Thommason

(2012) notes, to delve into momentary dimensions of being and learning, a pleasure symptomatic

of the fascination with perpetual experience in an age of spectacle, runs the risk of exhaustion.

Those forever in pursuit of the next, great experience, are typically left feeling bereft, or as he

offers, “A carnival that never ends stops being fun” (p. 31).

The current social obsession of cramming more into every moment is counter-productive to

learning, actually, as the seemingly fallow periods of less activity can give the mind a chance to

work out what has been experienced. The hard-to-witness changes that are elemental to learning

are the foundation for much of what we might momentarily see as change (Gaudelli & Laverty,

2015). Critique, examination, asking questions and thinking twice, or revisiting an issue at a later

point, all suggest an inefficiency that is not befitting a social moment of speed and spectacle. And

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yet, it is precisely these moments that surround the reading of a significant text that educators

should seek to extend deliberately, deepen ponderously and even promote reveling within.

GCE educators might consider a variety of activities to develop the spectacle analysis of LS. First,

teachers might address the pace of contemporary classrooms by mindfully and purposefully

slowing down. Practices in mindful education where students are invited to practice clearing their

minds, engage in focused breathing exercises, and developing a meditative practice in classrooms

will help to establish a context of thinking carefully and deeply about texts while slowing down

the frenetic pace of schools (see Jennings, 2015; Rechtschaffen, 2014). A mindful approach to

classroom teaching will also amount to an experience of otherness as it represents an alternative

way of being for many students, a crucial strategy for educators committed to GCE. Embedding

mindful practices into the norms of a classroom are especially useful in studying media and

spectacle, as it establishes a counter-practice from which to better understand the way that

media promotes episodic thinking through spectacle-making.

Another practice is to engage a deeper inquiry about LS in light of the spectacle surrounding it.

Questions might include:

 How are spectacles made within and around ideas, texts, and events?

 What expectations do participants have for spectacles?

 How do spectacles, through anticipation and the events themselves, create an

ever-increasing expectation of being entertained?

GCE provides a viable framework for engaging students in learning about LS and the

accompanying spectacle. Texts like LS offer pinnacle learning opportunities in that they represent

a broad swath of discourse on highly significant global issues, namely economic development and

global warming. It would be difficult to imagine teaching a global course of study in a K-12

environment without addressing these twin, related concerns. Too, analyzing the media

strategies surrounding these texts is itself a form of global learning as it represents the networked

dimensions of media and how ancient traditions, like Vatican decrees, have been shaped by a

rapidly changing media context.

A problematic dimension of engaging the spectacle path in reading global texts is the potential

blurring of the lines between study and worship, witnessing and participating. At what point does

the text become an object of worship, or a surrogate for its author and their faith, as opposed to

one that is pedagogical? I vividly recall teaching comparative religions in a secondary school’s

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multicultural studies course. We visited a variety of religious institutions and many of the

students were drawn to Buddhism from their visit with the monks of a nearby monastery. They

were taken in by the humility, genuineness, and charm of these interlocutors of Buddhism in

what I recall as deep, aesthetic moments for the class within a hillside sanctuary. We once had

the opportunity to hear the Dalai Lama speak, and the joyousness of that occasion was indeed

difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate from the teachings of Buddhism. I often wondered if

that was appropriate study, given the commitment to secularism that I was charged to uphold in

a public school. The same potential arises from LS, it seems, or any other global text that is

associated with a media celebrity like Pope Francis.

The deep grammar of schools, teaching, and curriculum, can be viewed as a form of implicit

curriculum, one where Christian principles and narratives are widely adopted unwittingly by

educators (see Burke and Segall, 2015). Analyses like this suggest that, contrary to the idea that

religion can be taught “objectively,” orientations of particular religions are already preformed in

the deeper culture of a school. With respect to my secondary school teaching about Buddhism, I

abided by the three “objectivity” principles of teaching about religion in public schools, namely,

(1) that it was permitted, (2) that inclusion of religion is important for literary, historical, and

social understanding, and (3) that it be done neutrally and objectively, to be academic not

devotional (First Amendment Center, 2008; NCSS, 2014). Despite my objectivity frame, some

students were so moved and taken in by the ecstatic experiences—its own form of spectacle—

that they sought out Buddhism thereafter. Reflecting on this episode suggests that there was a

counter-dynamic to the one offered by Kevin Burke and Avner Segall, or that within a

dominant/implicit Christian school, the presentation of an othered religion like Buddhism grew

in its attractiveness by way of its alterneity. Indeed, both aspects are plausible; or it is likely that

schools impart Christian viewpoints unknowingly while also periodically making counter-spaces

as a result of what students might read as the obligatory norms and ways of Christianity.

A linear conception of curriculum moving from aim to outcome has been widely criticized as an

unrealizable vision of learning and teaching (Pinar, 2013). The fact that we live amidst an

unending cacophony of texts and experiences, all inviting us to think of the world differently, is a

foundational condition of learning in a spectacle age and learning for GCE. That is not to suggest

that aims do not matter for educators, as they do inform a course of educational journeying. But

they must be viewed circumspectly, given our awareness of the nature of learning that defies

systematic mapping and assured outcomes. Entering into conversations about media and the

spectacle that surrounds certain texts and events does invite this uncertainty. And yet if we are

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serious about the contemporary need for education that reckons with the seriousness of the

global situation young people stand to inherit, then we must take these risks and step, if so

judiciously, into these challenging areas.

Conclusion

One can presume that Pope Francis’ encyclical, now just a few years beyond its release, will

quickly fade in the overwhelming din of a global mediaspace. So is the fate of global texts in

circulation, perhaps more quickly now than ever before, that their half-lives rapidly increase as

momentary attention carries us onto the next and the next in an endless flow of thumbed-

through feeds in an ever-expanding digital diet. LS is different, though, in that unlike fleeting

content delivered onto smartphones, there is unmistakable depth, sincerity, and substance in

this work, regardless of how one is disposed toward its content and rhetoric. Interpreting a text

like this requires a degree of care and knowledge, taking the time to describe the argument,

examine the details, and consider its social and historical connections. The pause that one would

aim to create around a substantial text like this is increasingly challenging, however, as the

encyclical arrives in the same spectacle-context that is flooded with media texts available to

teachers.

Educators, particularly those dedicated to a practice of GCE, need discernment about what global

texts are appropriate to bring to their students along with the instruction suggested by the same.

Condensed, commodified time coupled with a need for sustained and careful attention offers a

peculiar pedagogical dilemma within a spectacle age. Attention given to a fuller engagement with

a limited number of worthy texts is much preferable than sweeping, cursory reads of a wider

swath. Depth is demonstrably more valuable than coverage in learning, particularly when one’s

aim is to teach the situation of the world, the problems that we confront, and the actions and

interventions needed to develop a quality of life for all on the planet.

Global citizenship educators working in the context of a media age and myriad texts are offered

a great challenge and opportunity. They can choose to constrict the flow of information, and

indeed thought, by fortressing themselves and their students in the stable isolation of narrowly

construed textbooks and ready-made curriculum texts that stand in for rich material; or,

alternatively, they might throw themselves, their students, and their care into a media swirl

without attention to slowing down and thinking circumspectly of the losses inherent in this

approach and indeed within what modernity has wrought. In this analytic essay, I have aimed to

show that careful interpretation is possible in an inundated media context, and yet I know that

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these are indeed difficult pedagogical dances to synchronize. Yet, if educators are to adequately

prepare young people for the global situation of the present and future in light of the past, it is

urgent that they enter the dance as adroitly and pragmatically as they are able. The times require

deep mindfulness about global texts, their many possible readings, and an enveloping spectacle

contexts.

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About the Authors:

William Gaudelli is Professor and Chair of the Department of Arts and Humanities at Teachers

College, Columbia University. His research areas include global citizenship education and teacher

education/development. Gaudelli has published over 50 scholarly pieces in journals, including

Teachers College Record, Teaching Education, Theory and Research in Social Education, The

Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, The Journal of Aesthetic Education and Teaching and Teacher

Education along with two books. His third book, Global Citizenship Education: Everyday

Transcendence, which offers an analysis of global citizenship education in various locales globally,

will be published in April, 2016. He is a co-founder of the Global Competence Certificate Program,

which provides blended professional development for educators. Gaudelli is a frequent keynoter

at international conferences and guest lecturer at various universities, having previously served

as an executive board member of the John Dewey Society and College and University Faculty

Assembly for the National Council for the Social Studies. Gaudelli was a member of the South

Orange-Maplewood (NJ) Board of Education, 2011-2014. He was named a Rutgers 250

Revolutionary Fellow in 2016.

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