American students today are unlike any previous generation. Faced with shrinking employment opportunities, increased demands of technology, and the uncertain position of the United States in the global marketplace, our country must prepare our young people to be global citizens.
IREX, a division of the Department of Education, is spearheading this effort by creating programs for public school educators that makes available training in global competencies, offering fellowships for international teacher exchange, and providing support for creating projects to allow classroom teacher participants to bring their expertise back to school districts to increase global education at a local level.
I, along with 68 other American teachers, was granted this fellowship opportunity with the Teachers For Global Classrooms program and embarked on a rigorous four-month online course study of global education concepts and pedagogy.
Upon completion, we divided into international study groups to travel to Morocco, Ghana, Brazil, Ukraine, India and Indonesia, and began working on a ‘capstone project’ to bring our newly acquired knowledge into our current teaching assignments.
Phase two involved traveling to Washington D.C. for a symposium on global learning. My attendance there solidified my belief that dynamic, committed educators exist all over our country. IREX representatives shared their desire and hope for program members to become global education ambassadors at home and abroad, creating a sense of responsibility and pride amongst the participating teachers.
Meeting Augustina, a host teacher from my assigned country of Indonesia, made the necessity of global learning real. As she spoke proudly and fondly about her Indonesian rural school, their lack of electricity and resources, and the need to down a river to get to work, I realized the accuracy of IREX’s vision. Learning in isolation, or from watching videos of children in other countries isn’t the best global education practice. Reading books about children around the world from our home country isn’t the best global education practice, either. Global education requires human interaction and the sharing of stories, cultures and beliefs.
By bringing educators together from all parts of the globe we can communicate through our shared passion. What teachers do worldwide really isn’t so different. We bring ourselves to the classroom every day with similar purpose and vision: to teach our children to love learning, to do their best, and to become empathetic, productive citizens of our world. IREX understands the necessity of global learning and creates programs that take action.