Cycle 1: Globalization, Global Education, and Global Belonging

One of my biggest takeaways from this week’s readings is that we as teachers are not using the “flattening” of the Earth to our advantage or globalization to our advantage to nearly the degree most of us could be.

This was illustrated to me in part by how much I learned reading the article “It’s a Flat World After All,’ from which the term “flattening” used above was coined. The author argues that because of globalization the world has become an even “flat” playing field. I don’t know that our world is as globalized as Thomas Friedman argues it is. Several other people make good arguments about how it is not, such as Pankaj Ghemawat in his TED talk “Actually, the world isn’t flat.” Regardless of how flat the Earth is at this point, I think most people agree that globalization is increasing.

In the same article linked above, Friedman quoted Bill Gates who said

“When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow. In math and science, our fourth graders are among the top students in the world. By eighth grade, they're in the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations.”

This then begs the question, what do we do now? How do we as educators prepare our students?

To answer this question we need to look at places like India and China where students are studying and using the technology they have to learn and grow and develop. Not to look at cat pictures. The amount of technology and information students today have at their fingertips constantly amazes me. I had to look things up in books and hope they had it and it wasn’t out of date. Then we got the internet and we were amazed at how fast we could get information. We would boot up the computer, maybe do something else while it got itself turned on, then wait for the dial up stuff to go through, and then wait for each (very basic) web page to load.

I now have a smart phone in my pocket at almost all times and I think I have begun to take the access to information for granted. It makes sense, as we become accustomed to something, we begin to take it for granted. That is human nature, but reading this was a good reminder of how much power we have in our back pockets.

Our students have this power. They may not all have a smart phone or a computer or internet at home, but most of them have something and all of them have access at school and libraries.

One problem lies in how few of our students take advantage of this access.

So many of my students have very little drive and engagement in school. I see two main reasons for this. 1. They are middle class and assume they will continue to be regardless of whether or not they put in much effort beyond passing their classes or 2. They are poor or highly impacted in other ways and have lost any hope that there is more out there in the world for them.

We as teachers have a responsibility to help our students see that they will need to be able to compete with people from around the world and that they have the capability and if needed the support to do so if they decide to.

So the question becomes how do we help these types of learners?

How do we help them understand the competition they will be up against to help them take their work more seriously? How do help them understand that they have the power to compete and to do well? How do we engage them in learning and developing when they would rather be playing fortnite?

I don’t know that I have an answer right now. I agree that our schools need some drastic changes and I believe things like Project Based Learning and Expeditionary Learning are helping some schools head in the right direction, but it’s not enough.

I don’t feel like I have a lot of answers right now, however, I also think our students deserve to know the truth about our and their places in the greater global world and they deserve teachers who will tell the truth and then empower them and help them figure out how to make the most of it and their lives.

Introductory Post TE 867

Hello all,

My name is Rose Pompey and I am a middle school teacher in Arvada Colorado.

I have been teaching four and a half years, since I graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in December of 2013. I began my career teaching ESL at a high school in Greeley where I worked with students in grades 9-12, ages 14-21, from a wide variety of different countries, many of whom were refugees. After spending a semester with them I moved down to the Denver area where I taught both “regular” 6^th and 7^th grade social studies and sheltered 6^th and 7^th grade social studies for students learning English. I was again at diverse and highly impacted school were I worked with students from a number of different countries. I taught there for three years before moving to my current school where I am now teaching 8^th grade social studies. The students I work with currently are less diverse in terms of what countries they were born in, primarily the US with a few from Mexico and two from China. Overall, the switch was a good one and I’m glad to be in the school I am now, but I do miss having students from so many different places.

Outside of work, I am an avid reader, since the school year started in August I have read over 60 books. One of my favorite things to do is curl up on my couch with my 2 cats and a good book. I was born and raised in Colorado, but I love the ocean and if I ever leave the state, I am moving to a beach town. I am also taking my last two classes before I complete my masters, this one and TE 872. I will be done June 28^th!

This picture is of me and most of the students in one of my sheltered classes 2 years ago. I choose this photo for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that there are students from 7 countries represented in this picture alone. Most of my personal experience in global education has been in working with students who are new to the United States and I love learning from their different perspectives on and experiences with the world and education. The other reason I choose this picture is because I believe that part of my job as a teacher, particularly as a social studies teacher, is to help my students become global citizens capable of living and working in a society that is globally connected more and more every day. My hope is that this class will help me be better able to do just that.