"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one..."
While it may be cliche or trite or cheesy to quote these lyrics by John Lennon as I start this entry, it feels right to me as the song is running through my head right now as I think about what I am going to take away from this exchange, this summer adventure, and what I'm hoping to share with everyone who is reading this blog and everyone I talk with about my experiences when I get home. The beauty of my work is that I do work with an international student body and that we do explore issues of global concern through the international language of English...but is our school really an international school or a globally aware and engaged campus? Are U.S. schools in general preparing global citizens? Are other countries doing so?
According to a just released report on ASCD Newsbriefs, Americans are scoring terribly in geography. This is not new, in fact, and is no surprise, but it is still quite depressing. With all of the connectivity via the internet and all of the broadcast global struggles (political, economic, environmental, social) and the import of foods and goods from around the world to feed the insatiable American appetite, what do we really know of the world? Very little, clearly, as indicated by the geography statistics and also from some anecdotes about pre-travel preparations. When I called my bank to ask them to put a note on my account that I would be overseas and told the service agent that I was going to be in Indonesia, his reply was, "Ok. Where is that? Can you spell it please?" And when Dustin was talking with a college secretary about his pending journey to Sumatra, her reply was, "Oh, so you can practice your Spanish there?" And while I don't expect everyone to know everything about the world (there are many gaps in my own knowledge), some basic knowledge and some fundamental interest would be a very big change and good step toward global citizenship.
A student in one of the classes here asked me the other day, why do Americans only know about Bali? Of course this is a generalized statement and not entirely true, but then again Bali is well-known....though I wonder how many Americans even know that it is in Indonesia.
Some ideas that come to mind regarding how to turn this around:
1) Continue to support and develop more exchange programs like the one I'm on or the programs that bring international exchange students to U.S. schools...and help others become aware of and take part in these opportunities
2) Engage individuals with international experience (including our refugee students!) in discussions about their home countries, the world, and more with American students and in multiple contexts: Social Studies classes, English classes, workshops, festivals, etc.
3) Use project-based learning, webquests and thinkquests and other pedagogical strategies as a way to have students apply their learning in a global context and share their ideas with peers worldwide
4) Critically explore the implications of the "Americanization" of the world - from McDonald's & KFC, to fashion, to movies and music cultures, to English, to "democractic" movements, and much more...
5) Create PLCs (professional learning communities or teacher-teams) that explore, analyze, and evaluate their teaching and their students learning in both a local and a global context...engage in intellectual, broad research of methodologies, successes, and so on both within a school and around the world
6) Work with curriculum design committees to make global awareness and global citizenship (and responsibility) central topics across disciplines
...I will return to this entry and add more ideas and some more concrete thoughts about what I might bring back to my class and school directly when I have more time...
Until then, what do you all think? What can/should be done? What role can you play? What steps do we need to take as a community to turn these things around? Imagine...
