Global Citizens

To thine own self be true. Shakespeare said it in Hamlet Act 1, scene 3 according to the internet. But it hold true for each country and their curriculum I think. We can learn a lot by looking at what different countries do and then decide what we should do. But we have to do what works for us and for our teaching. I have worked in several districts and in many of them, teachers are tired of trying new ways every time something changes. We have gone through local assessments that were laboriously written, piloted, revised, standardized, and abandoned. We had the MEAs and now we have the NECAPs. It is good that we haven't given up but are we taking the time to find out if what we are doing is working? Change takes time and it seems to me we have had too many changes too fast. I think we need to slow down and see what works.

I think we need a clearer picture of what we want. Do we want good test scores? Do we want creative learners? Do we want to help produce people who will be happy successful adults in society? I think we want it all! But sometimes I wonder if we are seeing the trees for the forest.

The reading and listening has given me a lot to think about this week. I was listening to the Seminar that Linda Darling-Hammond presented and thinking it sounded very familiar then I realized it was linked to the article of her's that we read. No wonder the examples were the same! I like the idea of Assessments for learning. I like the idea of assessing as we learn, not always a paper and pencil way

We need to do what we do well and keep doing it. Zhao said that American schools are respected in other countries and I know this to be true. The University of Maine has a large number of international students. In any class, including this one, I have taken there are usually students from other countries. I have been fortunate to make friends with many of them. Our engineering school has student from other countries arriving and graduating all the time. Many come here for their doctorates. Part of that may be because it is less expensive but still they come. More and more of our high schools are selling themselves internationally. Orono and Millinocket are courting students from China. Lee Academy has a number of students from various countries. So we should continue to do what we do well and fix what we don't do well.

One of the things we don't do well is educate globally literate students. Education majors are not required, as far as I know, to take a foreign language. There is a joke that is ironic that asks what trilingual means. The reply is to speak 3 languages. Bilingual is 2. Monolingual is Americans. Having been involved with the AFS exchange program in the past I have known many students from other countries who spoke more that one or two languages. My daughter Sveta, from Belarus, now has so many I lose count. She came here with Russian, Belorussian, English, and smattering of French. She went to University in Lithuania so learned that language, then married a German, and speaks that language as well. One middle school I worked in did not even teach a language.

We do need for our students to understand other cultures. It could be done in Social Studies classes or integrated into other classes. A current event section would be good even just as a part of the school day. We do sometimes watch Channel One at school and that does a good job of talking about subjects that interest the students. You can always tell when it is really good because the room quiets as the kids listen.

As I read these articles I realized that I am more globally literate than I had realized. I was in Japan when I interviewed for the job I have now. I have hosted in my home students from too many countries to list. I think I am happiest that I have an ongoing program where students from a college in Japan shadow my students for a day. Both sets of students get a tremendous amount from that one day.