Global Competence: Asia Society Calls for More Sister Schools

In a landmark publication published this fall, Ready for the World: Preparing Elementary Students for the Global Age, the Asia Society calls for significant improvements in the approach U.S. schools take to open the minds of elementary students. The guide lays out a complete framework on how schools, administrators, and teachers and integrate global competence in their work.

The authors lay out a 10-point outline that they call a Vision for Global Education, which calls for “dynamic interactions and exchanges with sister schools to enhance learning and create understanding.” This is a chance to connect your sister cities program with the local education system. Check out Sister Cities International's sister schools toolkit.

Any interested reader will find the guide accessible, but I see it as an important tool to articulate the needed reasoning for increased integration of global topics in the classroom. Both readers outside the education system and those professional educators will find this useful.

I was especially impressed with the opening of the preface by Tony Jackson, the Vice President of Education at the Asia Society:

Consider a girl entering kindergarten in the United States. Though her classes may be full of students from around the world, chances are global issues and cultures will not be consistently woven throughout her coursework. Unlike young children in other nations who begin learning a second language in elementary school, she will probably learn only one language, English, until high school. When she starts her career, she will likely live and work in a world where China is the largest economy and the world’s largest cities are all outside the United States. Will her American education prepare her for the challenges and opportunities of a global economy?

Well said. Elementary School? Middle School? High School? College? We are not doing enough to expose, engage and educate the current and next generation to the rest of the world. Kids across the globe know English, U.S. major foreign policies, and definitely American pop culture. What do our kids know about Africa’s emerging democracies, Asian cultures, or contemporary history of South America? Very little - we need to get moving!

Looking at Global Education

Live from Doha, Qatar – I’m writing at the intersection of exhaustion and jet lag. It’s not a good place but I can sleep on the plane, right? I’m here attending the first World Innovation Summit on Education (WISE). The event is hosted and underwritten by the Qatar Foundation.

This is a serious meeting of the minds from the education sector – university presidents, national policy makers, NGO leaders, education reformers, multinational funders, community education advocates, open source and techie types, heads of state, corporate executives – more than 1,000 people are in the conversation. The Institute of International Education, one of our sister institutions, is one of the key supporting organizers.

 

The conference has been exploring three major themes: innovation, sustainability, and global education. With breakout sessions looking at inequality, higher education, funding, technology, women's education, e-learning, special needs, global mobility, access, social media, conflict zones, and minority inclusion among other topics.

 

The breadth and depth of the dialogue in and out of sessions has been terrific, but let me start with some facts:

• 115 million children around the world are not attending school
• 776 million adults cannot read or write
• 40% of the population in the Arab world is under 25
• One quarter of the world’s youth lives in the Arab World
• One of every three youth in the Arab World are unemployed
• The E.U. provides .5% (of GDP) budget subvention for education and 40% subvention to agriculture
• The cost of one additional solider stationed in Afghanistan is equal to building 20 new schools in the country
• In developing countries, 90% of working women with an education reinvest their salary in their family, compared to 40% of men who reinvest in their family
• 40% of West Africa and South Africa is illiterate
• Half of all the teachers in Sub-Sahara Africa are untrained or undertrained
• Africa needs 4 million new teachers in the next 5 years to meet demands
• One third of higher education students in South Africa are studying via distance learning
• There are 4 billion active mobile accounts worldwide
• There are 1.5 billion active web accounts worldwide
• 2% of student learning worldwide is happening via mobile technology
• A new study suggests adults will have 10.8 jobs by the age of 42
• Only 2% of U.S. students study abroad

 (Note: Facts are from various sources and speakers throughout the conference.)

 

Since I can't do the conference sessions justice by recasting them in summary, (information and speaker videos are online at the WISE conference website), I'm sharing some of my favorite soundbytes, comments, and opinions:

• Education is a basic human right and there is an education deficit globally.
• Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. (Arabic saying)
• We need to create knowledge societies.
• It’s no longer a career for life, but a lifetime of careers.
• Nothing is more dangerous than a world view from someone who has had no view of the world.
• We need excellence and equity in education.
• We need to create global competence among our citizens.
• Knowledge transcends time. Knowledge travels.
• We need to change the system. Real reform puts the student front and center not the bus schedule.
• Education is an economic driver.
• Knowledge is the human adventure.
• We have corporate social responsibility, but what we need is intellectual social responsibility.
• An unexamined life is not worth living. (Socrates)
• An educator makes the hard seem easy.
• Technology breaks isolation and brings learning to remote sites.
• Education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century. (Obama)
• Teachers bring knowledge to life.
• Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire. (Yates)
• Education is the key to building a culture of peace.

My deep appreciation to all of the speakers and participants (quoted and unquoted) who I spoke with for their thoughts, opinions, and passion. My less-than-stellar note-taking doesn't allow me to properly attribute each quote, so I apologize. But clearly, they left an impression on me.

 

All this has me thinking…what else can Sister Cities International and our network of 2,000 communities do to flex our muscles of influence on education globally?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sister Schools featured in International Education Week

By Guest Blogger: Erica Sewell, Youth & Education Program Manager for Sister Cities International

Every November the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Education team up to celebrate International Education Week. As manger of Sister Cities Youth Department this is a very exciting week for me because it speaks to the core of the department - promoting international education and exchanges. This week is about learning something new about other cultures without actually traveling to another country.

This year Sister Cities International was invited to speak at the kick off event for International Education Week on November 17 at the U.S. Department of Education. The topic of the event was school-to-school partnerships and we highlighted our Sister Schools program. This program is a perfect fit because it focuses on pairing schools in the United States with a school overseas to encourage collaborative projects between classes. The program allows schools to connect with a school in another country without international travel by getting youth engaged, interested in global issues, and by adding an international component to the curriculum. Not only were colleagues Jim Doumas and Jennelle Root able to present on Sister Cities and our Sister Schools program but so were several students. Students at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in Chicago and their Sister School at Ben M’Sik High School in Casablanca, Morocco were able to share their experiences about their exchanges via audio and video conferencing. Faculty and staff from Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, DC and their partner school Lycee Jean Jaures in Montreuil, France also participated—again recognizing another form of a school partnership.

The highlight of the presentation was hearing from the students and listening to the things that they learned and what surprised them. A common theme was how wrong their prior conceptions were, how their host families made them feel right at home and how warmly they were welcomed when they arrived in Casablanca. The impact and life changing effect can best be summed up as a student from Morocco put it, “the 2008 Sister Cities youth conference were the best days of my life!”

A totally unexpected common theme was squirrels. Sometimes it is the little things that you take for granted, such as frequently seeing squirrels that remind you of the first time you traveled abroad, the life lessons you learned, and how you were amazed by something that was second nature to others. The first time I studied abroad I was in London and I can still remember how great I thought their telephone booths were. Yes, I still have the pictures of me standing next to one. I am sure the locals were wondering why I never went inside the booth but to me that was something new and exciting! Every time I travel I discover something new and that is what international education is all about. So what are you waiting for? Encourage your school to form a Sister Schools relationship. Life is truly a journey and not a destination.