Globalization Teaching and Curriculum

Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself. --John Dewey

We live in an awesome country. I cannot imagine what life would have been like had I lived anywhere else other than the United States. The freedoms that we have as US citizens are unmatched anywhere else in the world. It is due to these freedoms why the US has led the world in innovation and defining individualistic quality of life.

At the same time, the world we live in is changing. It is changing in ways never imagined before. Getting higher education online, or talking to people across the globe on video phones, or small business owners doing businesses with the world community on the Internet was unthinkable a few years ago. Furthermore corporations are using labor force as well as technology professionals from other countries like China and India to lower cost and increase profits. Globalization of job markets has changed the demands of the workforce of future economy. In order to work in the world of 21st century we must provide children with an understanding of the role they will be playing as world-wise US citizens, and provide them the tools to work in this new environment. These changes require that we seriously consider how we prepare our young people to continue exercising their freedoms and lead the world

Preparation of young people for adult life is done during school years, and our schools are not preparing young people for the world of 21st century. Under the mandates of NCLB and the immense preoccupation with the test scores, many of the programs like foreign languages and sciences have been placed on the back burner. World events do not take first place in the social studies curriculum and world geography is hardly seen as essential. The globalization demands that students value in learning more about other cultures and perspectives to be able to communicate better. It also demands that students understand their relationship to world events. Finally globalization demands that schools teach students to seek out unique and creative solutions for solving problems.

Tougher Choices and Tougher Times , a 1997 report on the skills of the American workforce released by National Center on Education and Economy, makes it clear that we need to change the way we prepare our students for future. The schools have not sensed the urgency to address the issues mentioned in this report. As I read this report I was struck by these points:

1. There is a strategic shift in labor industry. With labor jobs going to other countries, our students will have to learn to strategize and analyze to come up with new ways of solving problems.
2. Our students will have to communicate with people of other cultures in seamless ways. Therefore students will have to learn history, geography, sciences, foreign languages and literature in ways to see clear connections between the world events and their personal and civic lives.
3. The most important point, our students may have to exercise their creativity in seeking new and unique contexts, patterns, relationships in ways never imagined before.

I invite all teachers, colleagues, concerned parents and students to tell me what they think of globalization and the report posted above and share their ideas Also feel free to check out related few links provided at the top right corner of this website.