As a teacher in a rural school, I have noticed that my students rarely have any concept of the world around them, especially when it comes to international issues. While most of my students rarely leave the county, much less the state, none of them have every left the country or have an idea of the global community that encompasses our world. While the Internet has offered them countless opportunities to expand their knowledge around the world, they don’t realize the possibilities this offers. Therefore, in the wake of the push for 21st century skills, I often wonder, in an isolated, rural community, how does global awareness and collaboration increase students’ motivation and achievement in the English classroom?
My students struggle with understanding global points of views on issues. The biggest exposure they get to world issues is in World History and British Literature, both which teach valuable concepts, but none that are necessarily current and innovative in our modern society. So, for most of our students, this is as much exposure as they will ever get to global awareness, and in today’s global society, this isn’t enough. Our rural community has seen a complete economic devastation in the past 3 years with crop revenue dropping and most local factories closing. Now our students have to consider leaving the community, going to college, or joining the armed forces in order to support themselves. Without a complete understanding of global issues and community, my students will not have a clue about what waits on the other side of the cornfields or, more importantly, the vast and amazing opportunities that they can partake in. Now is the time to incorporate an awareness of global issues as well as global collaboration to entice my students to be aware of the rest of the world. However, I am skeptical of how this will impact their motivation for learning and their academic achievement. Will my rural students have an interest in global awareness? Will they embrace the possibilities of international collaboration? It’s a new concept to them; will it be enough to boost their achievement in English?
Teachers in any school setting, urban or rural, need to realize the importance of global awareness and collaboration in their students’ lives. The world is changing at a drastic pace, technology is evolving at an exponential rate, and jobs now have an international scope. In the next few decades, the growth in these areas is only going to continue to grow; therefore, we, as teachers, have a responsibility to prepare our students to adapt to these changes and benefit from them as much as possible. We also need to find away to ensure our students that is in a viable concept and maintain their interest in this area. Not only will teachers be interested in the incorporation of global awareness, but so will universities, future employers, and institutions around the world.
There is a definite need for globalization in the classroom. The Partnership for 21st Century skills highlights global awareness as one of the elements necessary for students to thrive in the next few decades of the 21st century. Their directives for global awareness include the following:
SOCIAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL SKILLS
Interact Effectively with Others
• Know when it is appropriate to listen and when to speak
• Conduct themselves in a respectable, professional manner
Work Effectively in Diverse Teams
· Respect cultural differences and work effectively with people from a range of
social and cultural backgrounds
• Respond open-mindedly to different ideas and values
• Leverage social and cultural differences to create new ideas and increase both
innovation and quality of work (Partnership)
Also, as written in Wanted: Global Citizens, “the world needs young people who are culturally sophisticated and prepared to work in an international environment… Because of globalization--the ongoing process of intensifying economic, social, and cultural exchanges across the planet--young people the world over need more innovative thinking skills, cultural awareness, higher-order cognitive skills, and sophisticated communication and collaboration skills than ever before” (Suarez).While this research supports the importance of global skills and collaboration in curriculum, there is much less research available in relation to rural schools.
In Virginia, however, some attention has been given to creating a “global education”. According to Dawn Hutton of the Southwest Virginia Education and Training Network, “Students learn and retain information better if they are able to relate what they learn to real life. Without a personal connection or a social connection to someone from other parts of the world such as Asia, Europe, or Africa, it is hard for them to relate to the material and understand the impact it has on their life. This problem may result in a lower informational retention rate” (Hutton). A real world attention to curriculum will obviously make students retain information better.
Still, my question delves further into the subject: how will motivation and achievement be affected? Retention is a worthwhile goal, but students need to do much more than just remember content. They need to enjoy it, to make it their own, and use it to construct new knowledge. I believe that through the creating of global skills and collaborator experiences, students will be able to truly own their learning and achieve at much high levels than previously possible.
References
Hutton, Dawn. (2009) Global Education in Rural Schools throughout Southwest Virginia. Retrieved from the Connexions wiki at http://cnx.org/content/m23391/latest/.
Suárez-Orozco, M., Carolyn Sattin. (April 2007) Wanted: Global Citizens. Educational Leadership 64 (7), 58-62.
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2009) P21 Famework Definitions. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/documents/P21_Framework_Definitions.pdf .
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