Educating for Global Understanding
On December 5th, Primary Source held its second annual Holiday Bazaar and Trivia Night at the Hellenic Cultural Center in Watertown. This well-attended event featured a variety of vendors selling unique international crafts, a festive raffle, and a challenging trivia event.
Beginning with the Massachusetts Education Reform Act in 1993, the state has undertaken a broad initiative to improve student achievement and bring innovation and excellence to the public schools.
In 2008, Secretary of Education Paul Reville made a strong statement in support of this intitiative with the creation of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education's Task Force on 21st Century Skills. The task force brought together members of the business, education, and technology communities to begin a conversation about the future of education in Massachusetts.
Maureen Sullivan teaches English at Bedford High School. With support from Primary Source, she has created an international speaker series that connects her 12th grade students with leaders on a range of global issues.
More than 1000 educators have traveled on study tours across the world with Primary Source. Their photographs capture the spirit of international exchange that each teacher brings back to his or her classroom. This fall, Zeff Photo in Belmont generously agreed to sponsor the Zeff Photo Study Tour Photo Contest to gather some of these images. The winning photos were chosen by a panel of judges from hundreds of entries, and each winner has received a gift certificate from Zeff Photo.
Gilmore Academy, a public middle school in Brockton, Massachusetts, is auditioning for a big part. As a candidate school to offer the Middle Years Program of the International Baccalaureate, it must prove that it meaningfully addresses the major principles of the program. Over the past two years, Primary Source has been a valuable resource in helping the school to address the important MYP principle of international-mindedness. From in-school Primary Source workshops for the school's entire faculty to the attendance by two Gilmore teachers at this past summer's Teaching for Global Understanding institute, this important principle in 21st century education has been fostered. Jocelyn Young and David Brewster, Humanities teachers at Gilmore, found the summer institute changed their perspectives on what a globally-minded education means.
On November 4, 2008, Needham Public Schools faculty gathered for a district-wide conference on local and global citizenship. "We recognize," wrote Dan Gutekanst, Needham's superintendent, "that in today's world our students need to have the knowledge and skills necessary to be active participants in an interconnected global society."
Knowing that our world is more interconnected than ever before, how can we prepare our students to face the global challenges of the 21st century? Primary Source provides a rare opportunity for teachers to globalize their classrooms in meaningful ways by offering content-rich courses, seminars and workshops on a myriad of international topics. But to continue this tradition of high-quality global education, Primary Source needs your help.
In the past five years, more than four million Iraqis have been driven from their homes as a result of war and sectarian bloodshed. Filmmaker and Pakistan native Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy presented a look at the plight of Iraqi refugees and discussed her journey as a documentarian.
Primary Source is proud to recognize International Education Week, November 17th-21st, with new opportunities for schools to bring a global perspective into every student's classroom experience.
David Sheehan is the social studies curriculum coordinator for grades 6-12 in the Watertown Public School system and presently serving on the curriculum committee of the National Council for the Social Studies. He recently traveled with Primary Source on a summer 2008 study tour of Cambodia and Vietnam.
