If there were just 100 people in the world, only 5 would be American
I think we need to better prepare our students and help them realize there is more to the world than outside the United States. We need to educate more on a global scale, but also encourage other languages, and studying abroad. Why do we wait until high school to encourage other languages? Why aren't we promoting Chinese or Japanese? Why do we not encourage studying abroad until college? Why aren't more of our students studying abroad? As an advisor I try to promote studying abroad as much as possible. I had the opportunity and loved it. I try to explain to students that this may be the one time in their life where they can take off for 4 months and live in another country with the help of financial aid. Some students take advantage of the opportunity and are excited about it, but others look at me like I am crazy.
I think it is important that we start thinking about this now before it is too late. There are little things we can do in our schools and teaching that could drastically change the way our students think and can better prepare them for the future.
Thank goodness we don't have to rely on the print media (particularly BDN)to be informed! I was struck by some of the same thoughts as you when reading that chapter. I don't like to think that our students are as ignorant as all that, but I have to admit it is probably true. My brother lives in Belgium and he has (by necessity) learned several languages and deals with people of various nationalities every day, but when he travels to another country it is like us traveling to another state. We like to think that we have regional characteristics in this country, which we do, but we still all speak the same language and have a great deal in common with each other. On the up-side, that means we are a more unified people. On the down-side, we can too easily forget that there is another world out there because "we don't need them anyway." Need or not, the world is becoming smaller everyday, and our students would greatly benefit by having their eyes opened to all the wonderful possibilities that exist outside our borders.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is a huge deal and one that we must address immediately in the curriculum at all levels. I worked with an MAT student last year who had a Japanese connection and regularly had her second grade class SKYPE and talk to (and learn from) a young Japanese boy. It was amazing to see 7 year olds asking so many good questions about a different way of like.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are encouraging your college students to study abroady...what a wonderful opportunity.
It is a small world. Especially with the means of communication available. I couldn't agree more with the early language education and more of a focus on global activity. Unfortunately I think a lot of the problem is the fact that we would need to add this to our schools and most school systems view multiple languages as luxury's they can afford because their time and money need to be used to "succeed" on standard based testing. It refers to what was talked about in chapter 6 as international knowledge and skills being a critical skill and not just a luxury as many still think.
ReplyDeleteI think if you asked Americans they might guess that out of 100 people we would be in the 50's anyway. I might have to ask my students this week. I did ask my husband who said 2. We tend to think we are very important. Teaching globally is a change I need to make even just as a math teacher.
ReplyDeleteAs a language teacher thanks for the support for the study of language. I made some commentary on my blog about studying Spanish vs. Chinese. There are a few arguments for choosing to study Spanish over Chinese. I read something recently that suggested studying Chinese in addition to studying Spanish is the way to go, since Spanish is a latin based language and therefore easier to learn, while Chinese language study would be a lifetiem commitment.
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