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 [12] 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 [13] 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 [14] 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 [15] 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) [16] and the International Leaders in Education Program (ILEP) [17], 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 [18].
Global education, integrated into the K-12 curriculum, should be mandated by the states. Adoption of the common core standards [19] 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.