Global Infusion
July 8, 2014
My youngest son had an opportunity in the spring of ’13 to
spend almost a month hiking in Spain.
His plan was to complete as much of the El Camino de Santiago known in
English as the Way of St. James as he could in the amount of time he had. This
hike has many routes that all lead to Galicia, Spain where the Cathedral of
Santiago de Compostela is located. My son returned with an amazing “global
education”. He left speaking 2 languages
and came home speaking bits and pieces of many more. He left thinking he had very little
understanding of the world and he came how knowing he had very little
understanding and realizing he needed more.
He came home knowing that people from other countries know a great deal
more about their countries and ours! He
was shocked at what he didn’t know and how that might impact him in the future. He wrote a paper for his philosophy class
about the importance of his generation plugging into global education. He
explained why they should care and gave websites for more information about
global issues. He was 17. Why does a 17 year old get it and the
“educated” adults are still teaching _______?
I know you can fill in the blank.
In chapter 6, A
Classroom as Wide as the World, of Curriculum
21, Vivan Stewart highlights global trends that point to the importance of
global education for all of us. She
summarizes trends and the importance of those trends in economics,
science/technology, demographics, security/citizenship and education. She stated,
“Our national goal should be that all students must graduate from high
school college-ready and globally competent, prepared to compete, connect, and
cooperate with their peers around the world” (Stewart, Curriculum 21, 2010, p.
101). She identifies three key elements
of “global competence” or “global literacy”: knowledge of other world regions,
skills to communicate and values of respect.
The rest of the chapter gives ideas of “how to” integrate global
education into our schools and practices.
So how did this get missed in my son’s education? He took French from grade K through French V
in high school. He did very well,
receiving straight A’s. He
conversationally is fairly fluent and can pick apart several other romance
languages. He attends a school that provides a very large exchange program with
other countries. While we didn’t host a
student, we hosted many students at our home throughout his high school career
from many countries. My son loves travel
and actually sought people out to talk about their country. This still was not
enough.
I’m thinking at this point that it isn’t just language and
it isn’t just a selection of courses in high school (because I know they were
offered, yet not taken for various reasons- typically the instructor), that it
is more of an infusion of purpose into our already existing curricula K-12. We need to infuse why we need this knowledge,
this skills and values of respect. We
need to understand our goal (or just use Stewart’s on page 101) and identify
targets for daily lessons that put students on a path of achieving that goal.
As I support teachers this summer in designing units of study, I will be more
aware of “global literacy” and the purpose behind what we teach. I can already see how we might target global
knowledge and skills in Maine Studies through economic resources and the
Explorers through comparisons between people who explore then and now. We got this and it’s a start!
I love the idea of global literacy, and in that same chapter there was talk of schooling were half the day was in one language and half the day in another. I thought it was a great idea, and funny enough I talked to a friend this morning that just got a job doing the English part of teaching in Indonesia. She's super pumped about it and said even as a developing nation there are so many international schools! Global citizenship is such a neat concept!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting to hear about how engaged your son is with learning about other parts of the world. I think it is a big disservice that we are doing in our schools with limiting the "global education" we offer. I was very surprised to find in my own school that we don't offer foreign language classes. This could be due to limited resources, but with the state of our global relations and the make-up of our country, it seems like it would be mandatory for all schools by now. I agree that this global awareness should be some piece of our re-vamped curriculum.
ReplyDeleteThe piece about respecting other cultures and people from other cultures is really big. I find a lot of students around here put down other cultures very easily - almost a reflex. Of course it is learned from adults. So part of it is that our teachers need global experience so they can cultivate global competence themselves. Teacher professional development abroad is a piece.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is more than language or a study of different countries. Much more. It is a larger understanding of the world, particularly in this digital age when connecting with others anywhere is so easy...and fast. This is an excellent example, Kelly, of what happens when curriculum is too narrowly focused on a discrete set of subjects...then topics...then skills. Life is a bigger picture and so should what we learn (and teach) in schools.
ReplyDeleteMy son also hiked El Camino de Santiago and had a similarly mind-opening experience. And how could they not? Short of taking everyone on such a trip...how do we simulate the experience?