9-4 BLOG - Thoughts to Ponder This Week
· Can making a connection locally
help to establish a global connection?
· How would you create a global
connection that would relate to necessary curriculum standards?
· How will connecting globally
lead to authentic learning experiences?
Local connections can lead to establishing powerful global
connections. In the small town of Wolfeboro,
my husband and I were fans of a local artist, Peter Ferber. At a town gathering, we met Peter and his wife,
Jeannie. It turns out, Jeannie was
developing an amazing program, Access to Ideas, bridging small town New Hampshire to some small villages in Russia. Through shared interests and a desire to expose students to the world, Jeannie arranged for Nikolai Arzhannikov to meet with and speak with students in my husbands' grade 9 World Civilizations class.
There are so many options for global connections related to curriculum standards today. Communication is occurring across time zones and countries, using blogs, wikis, email, and other tools.
I spent many years teaching at a boarding school, so my children were constantly meeting students from all over the world. Often, we would have students live in our home during school vacations, rather than try to send them home all over the globe for less than a week. When my daughter was in Kindergarten, we had a wonderful young man from Taichung, Taiwan staying with us. My daughter (Abby) wanted to bring him (Kenith) to school for show and tell! At first I laughed, then realized that in a small New Hampshire town, there were many students that may have never met someone from Asia. Kenith and I spoke about this, and he wanted to visit the Kindergarten class as much as Abby wanted to bring him. He was very interested to see more levels of American schooling. We made arrangements for Kenith to visit. The class was so excited to meet him, and ask questions, that he returned for two more days to teach and learn from the class.
Michelle, thank you for sharing your personal experiences with making very real and global connections. I have been blessed to have a diverse family in which my mother is from the Philippines and my father is American. Since I have stayed in New Hampshire almost all of my life, I have had more interaction with my American side of the family than my Filipino side. However, as a child I remember my maternal aunts, uncles, and cousins talking about the Philippines and of their visits there. I also remember how interested I was to learn more about the country as well as the surrounding countries that many of my mother's side of the family either resided or visited frequently. I would then bring these stories back to my American cousins who would be very interested in them as well as my friends. Even now, talking to adults about my mother's Filipino culture and childhood interests them a great deal.
ReplyDeleteEssentially, from what you have shared and from my own experiences, most students and their parents would be open to integrating global citizenship into school curriculum not only because of the learning experiences but because it excites them. I think that by starting this global citizenship participation early on in students' education will help capture that interest and excitement which can encourage them to be active global community members in the future.
Great Post and thank you again for sharing!
I agree April! There is so much value in cultural storytelling, for sharing traditions and information about cultures. Opening our students to the different experiences at a young age, help them to learn to look for connections between cultures and appreciate (not fear) the differences.
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