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Todays students are part of a global society and must be globally competent to be college, career and life ready. It follows that a 21st century education needs to inspire and empower these students with the cultural, regional, and international/global content knowledge and understanding needed to live, work, and participate as active, engaged citizens and leaders in the global interconnected world. In an NEA policy brief entitled Global Competence Is a 21st Century Imperative, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel stated that "Public schools must prepare our young people to understand and address global issues, and educators must re-examine their teaching strategies and curriculum so that all students can thrive in this global and interdependent society." (Van Roekel, 2010) The nationwide Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) framework, which California embraces, addresses this need by including Global Awareness, Civic Literacy, and Environmental Literacy as three 21st century interdisciplinary themes that should be woven into all core subjects. Each theme highlights social and cross-cultural skills and active student projects to address issues from local to global.
The California International Studies Project (CISP) supports the beliefs of these organizations by providing professional development programs throughout the state to increase teacher's global competence. CISP recognizes the necessity for students to be able to communicate and work in groups across cultures and to recognize, respect, and value multiple perspectives and opposing viewpoints as they read, write, discuss, research, and take civic action to propose solutions to complex, interconnected, multi-faceted global issues.
In this article we will look very briefly at some beginning steps and a variety of opportunities that all teachers can use to globalize the classroom. This will be followed by a more in-depth focus on an A-G approved Global Citizen elective class currently being taught by Mandy Bush at Norte Vista High School in the Alvord Unified School District.
Steps for Globalizing the Classroom
1. Create an environment for global learning. Display a world map and use regularly as a reference in your classroom. Appeal to our eye-generation students by surrounding them with global images of people, places, and events from around the world on your walls. Build a global classroom library that has books representing various countries, belief systems, and global issues.
2. Group students for pair...