Three Questions for Globalizing Curriculum Topics: Teachers can globalize student learning around a given content topic (___) by having students consider the following questions:
- What effect do/did events in other places in the world and interactions with other people in the world have on ___? (or, what are/were some global causes of/influences on ___?)
- What effect does/did ___ have on other people and places in the world? (or, what’s the global impact of ___?)
- Where else in the world do we see/have we seen something like ___?
[Workshop Session: Develop Globally Competent Students Through Project-Based Learning]
Thinking Globally Isn’t the Same as Thinking Internationally: If we use the concept of “nation-state” to organize our thinking about the world, we risk “leaving out” peoples, places, systems, and cultures because they are not easily categorized as "national." Resisting categorization according to nation, they may be viewed by some as less worthy of the media’s -- and by extension, our -- attention. Using themes to approach a deeper and broader understanding of an interconnected world minimizes the exclusion of lesser known and less frequently documented/media-reported groups and places. Many processes are enacted within and across "national" boundaries and groups.
[Breakout Session: Global Competency and Professional Development]
The Issue of Positionality: American students need to grapple with the issue of positionality. How we view the world is bound up in who we are. The relative “positions” of nations can create "imperatives" that hinder and limit understanding of “the world.” Prioritizing and valuing global learning -- which requires critical thinking, perspective-recognizing and perspective-taking, solution-seeking, appreciating and accepting the challenges of change and ambiguity -- will help American (and other) students to recognize hierarchies and biases -- and also possibilities for learning and action.
[Breakout Session: Global Competency and Professional Development]
Major Challenges to Implementing Global Learning in the US: According to participants in a breakout session about supporting teachers to learn to teach for global competence, many American educators resist embracing global learning because they generally
- resist controversy and encounter in the classroom,
- avoid topics that push them up against the limits of their own expertise and knowledge, and
- worry about balancing the need to educate all students about the world with the need to enculturate “new Americans” in their classrooms.
Research Papers as Means, Not Ends: Envision the “required research paper” not as the “major final assignment” associated with an inquiry process, but as the launching pad for student actions designed to solve problems or positively affect people’s lives. In Dana Maloney’s ELA classroom, Inquiry leads first to the “required research paper,” then to Action informed by that research paper, and then to Action Research (which further informs the Inquiry initially undertaken). Check out <www.danamaloney.com>.
[Breakout Session: Solve the World’s Problems in the Secondary School Classroom]
The Place and Importance of Anonymous Questions: Students often fear they will offend when asking questions about religions and religious difference. While we must and can teach students “to channel their curiosity into respectful questions about cultures, religions, and diversity” (this was the focus of a breakout session that featured Tanenbaum’s The Seven Principles for Inclusive Education), we also need to provide opportunities for students to ask need-to-know questions anonymously: at various moments, it is more important for students be able to raise urgent questions than to be able to raise them well and in public. Check out <https://www.tanenbaum.org/>.
[Breakout Session: Including Religious Diversity in Global Learning]
“Social Network for Social Good”: "TakingITGlobal empowers youth to understand and act on the world's greatest challenges,” according to its web site. The “Telling Our Own Stories” activity in the Education section of the site includes some very good discussion questions. Lots of student voice here, from everywhere. Check out <http://www.tigweb.org>.
[Breakout Session: Building Future-Friendly Schools Through the Use of Collaborative Technology]
With Social Responsibility Comes Student Happiness/Well-Being: Student happiness/well-being is an important educational goal -- and student social responsibility correlates strongly to student happiness/well-being. “A happy student is likely to be responsible for self and others,” according to materials from Dana Maloney, NJ high school English language arts teacher. Check out <www.danamaloney.com>: the videos of student reflections make the case!
[Breakout Session: Solve the World’s Problems in the Secondary School Classroom]
The Student Bill of Rights: Brandon Busteed of the Gallup Foundation shared The Student Bill of Rights:
Every student in the world, from pre-K to higher ed, needs:
- Someone who cares about their development
- To do what they like to do each day
- To do what they are best at every day
[Lunchtime Plenary Session: The Global Bill of Rights for All Students]
What Pablo Casals Had to Say: Linda Darling-Hammond shared the following quotation from Pablo Casals, one that will inspire some and be dismissed by others.
“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.”
[Lunchtime Plenary Session: Global Perspectives: Developing and Sustaining Global Competence]
[Please note: Thanks to the generosity of the NEA Foundation, three of us who studied about and then traveled to China as part of the NEA Foundation's Pearson Foundation Global Learning Fellowship Program attended the Asia Society Partnership for Global Learning 2013 Annual Meeting in Brooklyn, NY from June 27 to 29. Some or all of the above will be shared in some form with the NEA Foundation for dissemination to other Global Learning Fellows. Some of the above may be relevant to participants in the upcoming Project Zero Future of Learning Institute (hgpzfol) (FOL13)].
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