While reading Julie Lindsay’s book, The Global Educator, one chapter focuses specifically on the impacts of global learning. The author, Lindsay, address many elements of the impact that global learning has on students. However, one of the elements that I found most important was the idea that global learning fosters personal awareness in students.
I believe that this aspect of global learning stood out to me the most because it is an element of education that cannot be taught inside the standard walls of a classroom.
For many young students, they do not typically have much understanding of what goes on in the world around them. This can be due to multiple things, but is largely grounded in the lack of exposure they have to other cultures. This concept of cultural differences is something that we learn as we grow. Thus, a young child is unlikely to recognize the learning differences, technology gaps, and limitations that exist between different countries.
However, when a teacher incorporates global learning into their classroom, they are exposing their children to these other cultures earlier than they might otherwise be exposed. This means that these children are also beginning to have conversations about learning differences at a younger age, and are also developing their sense of personal awareness sooner, too.
Bringing other cultures into the classroom, and humanizing them in a way that textbooks cannot, allows for students to be more open-minded when encountering other people and their opinions. Check out this article, by Jose Picardo, where this concept of personal awareness is further discussed!
After some research on the topic of personal awareness, and global education, I have also realized that bringing other cultures into the classroom through technology is not the only way to expose your students to other cultures. A Tedx Talk, given by Dr. Melissa Crum, highlights other ways that teachers may be able to navigate cultural diversity within the classroom. In the video, she explains an art-based professional development program she created to help teachers think differently about their diverse students.
Check out the video, here, for a different perspective on how teachers can navigate cultural differences with students in the classroom!