The days spent in D.C. left me with a much better idea of the TGC, IREX, and State Department's goals for our travel. We heard from some amazing speakers, had time to meet with our cohorts, shared global teaching strategies, heard a bit about our country of destination, and worked toward creating an essential question to guide our travel experience. My essential question addresses my students' prec0nceived notions about Moroccan students- how much do they know? Where have they gained this understanding? Are their ideas about Moroccan students accurate? If not, how can I facilitate a new framework of cultural understanding? Likewise, I am curious to know Moroccan students' thoughts about American students. How much do they know? Where have they gained this understanding? Are there ideas about my students accurate? Perhaps Moroccan students know more about American students than American students know about Moroccans? What can I do, as a liaison between my students and my host teacher's students, to challenge stereotypes and facilitate cultural understanding? Please feel free to comment or make suggestions on my area of focus- TGC stressed that our essential question is an active entity- likely to change as we go... so the more feedback, the better!
Funny how time flies... it doesn't seem like long ago that I was sitting at this same desk, struggling with the first discussion board prompt provided by Craig Perrier... "what is global learning?". I remember thinking that I had a pretty good idea of what this global learning business was all about, but once the question was posed to me, I had difficulty articulating my understanding. I was not alone as it turned out, and as the online course progressed, my TGC colleagues and I began to develop a better understanding of how to address this candid question. Many readings, videos, and webinars later, I sit at this same desk, writing Skype in the Classroom requests and watching TED talks that will apply to my upcoming lessons. As I was reading up on Skype lessons, I came across one that had intrigued me a few weeks ago- a project based on the sharing of students' daily lives with students in Southeast Asia. I decided to contact the creator of the project (my seventh or eighth email of the evening to various teachers across the globe) in an effort to create some sort of connection for my students. Interestingly enough, the project designer's profile noted that he/she worked for IREX, as a coordinator for the Vietnam and the Philippines Connections and Exchange program under the U.S. Dept. of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The world of global educators, I'm finding, is a small one. I am becoming familiar with a network of educators dedicated to creating authentic global experiences for students... an exciting idea for a teacher coming from a background of having little mention of global learning pedagogy. With two days until the Global Education Symposium, I am a bit overwhelmed by my almost obsessive efforts to create global lessons while also writing sub plans, picking up the dry cleaning, grading essays (read: looking at the stack of essays), packing, collecting student examples of global learning, creating my blog, and imagining what the symposium will have in store. Perhaps in a few days I will have a better idea of what can reasonably be achieved, but for tonight I'll take a deep breath and appreciate being chosen for the program... for one year ago from today, I sat at this desk and completed my TGC application.
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AuthorI'm a high school AP geography and world history teacher, traveling to Morocco with Teachers for Global Classrooms to bring cultural insight back to my community. Archives
May 2014
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