Educating for Global Understanding
The annual International Education Week (IEW) will take place from November 15-19, 2010. Primary Source is proud to participate in this unique opportunity to celebrate international education and exchange for all Americans with events and resources.
Primary Source is helping teachers incorporate web-based technology into the classroom through Web 2.0 Tools for the Global Classroom, a course that met for the first time on October 14 and will run until December 8th. Beginning and ending with an in-person workshop, Web 2.0 also includes a weekly online component.
Primary Source is proud to be a partner in the upcoming free, online Global Education Conference. Coinciding with International Education Week (November 15-19), this conference will feature over 300 presentations covering topics like 21st century skills, global competence, teacher exchange, international collaborations, and more.
Marblehead educators are working with Primary Source to globalize their curriculum, and they have found creative ways to do so with some of their youngest students. Mary Devlin, principal of the Glover and Eveleth Elementary Schools, and Sue Gravel, Marblehead's K-6 language arts and social studies coordinator, started a conversation about globalizing curriculum while on a Primary Source study tour to China and continued their exploration during the organization's 2010 Teaching for Global Understanding summer institute. The two have since been working with teachers to identify where links can be made to global education across the K-6 curriculum.
Nearly 300 guests gathered at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 29th to celebrate and support Primary Source's global education initiatives. Led by emcee José Massó of WBUR's "¡Con Salsa!," the event featured a talk by Canadian global education activist Craig Kielburger, a special greeting from Sesame Workshop, and a film honoring the work of Winchester High School teacher Margie Harvey.
Primary Source is helping teachers more effectively bring international cultures into the classroom. On Monday, October 24th, teachers gathered at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology for the Primary Source program Mexico’s Day of the Dead: Continuity of Indigenous Culture, where the authentic sights, sounds, and smells of Dia de los Muertos filled the air.
Global Education Massachusetts (GEM), a coalition of education, business, and policy leaders interested in promoting global education initiatives across the state, held its first meeting of the school year on September 21st. To join the GEM mailing list, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Summer is such a great time to catch up on reading the books that have been piled by my desk for months. This summer I read lots of young adult books that I think your students and teens will enjoy.
Primary Source has just launched a series of three one-hour webcasts designed to give teachers an introduction to global education. The sessions, each of which will be led by an expert scholar or practitioner, highlight international books and films for the classroom, global environmental challenges, and best practices in global education. Each webinar will also include a question and answer period and suggested resources for the classroom.
During Primary Source's Teaching for Global Understanding in the 21st Century institute, groups of teachers worked together to create innovative global education resources for their classrooms. Using what they had learned from presentations on the international economy, environment, health, social justice, and education as well as technological tools that were introduced during institute workshops, the educators created projects* exploring the importance of global education and methodology for expanding students' worldview.
