What if we asked our students, at final exam time, to create a multimedia project that demonstrates how their worldview has grown because of their coursework? I believe our courses should help students grow in not only knowledge, but who they are as people and how they see themselves as a member of a diverse global society. This has been the most incredible and meaningful final exam I have ever seen students produce! A few projects even brought tears to my eyes- really! For this exam I gave students a list of themes covered over the two to three years they had me as a Spanish teacher. From this list, I asked students to think about what they've learned about the world that made an impact on them (from the fun to the injustice), and to share what that knowledge is AND how it has transformed their worldview. I am sharing here one of my favorite videos! While the video is in Spanish, note that the student discussed the following topics: -access to safe, clean drinking water (this project was completed just before our own water injustice of Flint, Michigan) -trafficking in the chocolate industry -migration from Central America to the United States ALSO AN IMPORTANT NOTE! To avoid developing a "single story" of one particular place and culture, we watched the important and famous TED Talk of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, titled "Danger of a Single Story." It is important for us to not allow students to develop one idea of a people, place, or society, and to highlight both the empowering as well as injustice.
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;When we teach for global competence, we don't just share knowledge about the world. We bridge divides, break down walls, and create complex connection.
This is one of my favorite class moments ever captured. I teach in a diverse district with over 20 languages spoken, a student population that is half hispanic, and a student body that teaches me about the world daily. Two of my students in this photo made the perilous journey from Central America to the United States in 2014 and 2015, and I don't have the words to describe how much they mean to me as people. They were my teacher more than I was theirs. As the immigration debate in our country intensified over the last years, it was the elephant in the room in many ways in my Spanish class. I'm not one to avoid elephants. I also knew that there was a lot I didn't know. It was a transformative year in my teaching because I was a student on this topic as much as my own students were; I just helped us all in navigating the complexity that is required to understand this important topic. We started our immigration unit by asking, "Why do people want to immigrate to the US?" We then moved to, "How do they do that, both legally and illegally?" Lastly, we reflected on the question, "What does it mean to achieve the American Dream?" I didn't have answers for any of these. I just had resources for discovering them, and deep questioning techniques to allow students to discover their own perspectives and worldview in regards to this extremely important topic. In this photo, my students from Guatemala and Honduras shared with my classes about their lives in their home countries before arriving to the US, about their journeys in getting here, and what happened after they arrived. I didn't invite them to speak to my students until we were finished with our unit so that students could use what that had learned in class to ask deep questions of these boys and all they had endured. We don't always have to leave the classroom to connect to the world. And while we may have borders that define our lands, there are no borders to our shared humanity. |
AuthorI am a teacher, traveler, and life-long learner. I connect students and teachers to globally -focused learning. I believe students crave to understand and interact with the world. I have a Michigan home, and a global heart. Archives
August 2018
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