Global Education is Not a Fad

Trends in education, or education fads, come and go with each school year: block schedules, the small schools movement, character education, et cetera. Some trends are hot for a few years and then fizzle; others become an authentic and essential component of everyday teaching and learning.

I hear the term “global education” variously applied to international studies programs, multicultural events or assemblies, world history classes, Model UN, bilingual programs, and other internationally-minded add-ons to a typical middle or high school curriculum. The National Education Association issued a policy brief  this year arguing that global competence must become part of the core mission of education in the US. Other national associations of educators and policy makers have emphasized the urgent need to prepare US students for the global marketplace. But what should that preparation look like?

The DC Center for Global Education and Leadership has my favorite definition for this hard-to-pin-down trend: “Global education is not a subject, but rather a perspective or prism through which teachers teach and students learn.” It is not just a study abroad program or after-school courses for talented students or a Model UN club or a language class. It is a curriculum that incorporates global themes into the fabric of teaching and learning, in every subject and at every grade level, pre-K through 12.

This week I testified in front of the DC State Board of Education about the opportunities that IREX offers for teachers who are interested in globalizing their classrooms. My colleague Kristin Laboe and I discussed the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA) and the International Leaders in Education Program (ILEP), which have sent over 200 US secondary school teachers to more than 30 countries around the world. Only a handful of these teachers have come from the DC Public Schools system (DCPS). It’s obvious to me that DCPS should be setting the standard for K-12 global education. DC schools have unmatched access to international organizations, world-class museums, embassies, and more. We need to move away from the persistent pattern that study abroad, international exchange, and other global opportunities are only for the upper-middle class. Global education is for everyone -– not just white college girls doing a junior year abroad.

Global education, integrated into the K-12 curriculum, should be mandated by the states. Adoption of the common core standards may be paving the way, but let’s encourage our state-level policy makers to make global education an authentic and essential component of everyday teaching and learning. It is not a fad.