Budget Worries

All over North Carolina, all over the United States, teachers are worried about the economy and the upcoming state budget. The size of the proposed cuts in education are alarming, to say the least.

What can educators do about proposed cuts in funding to education? We can
1) Not panic.
2) Start thinking and planning.

Some of your thinking and planning certainly should involve communication with your state representatives. Let them know what proposed cuts in education really mean.

Then start communicating with yourself. Take a updated inventory of the personal resources you can draw on to teach globally. What are your own abilities and experiences? What about the people you know who can offer support in teaching about a region of the world? The free resources you can access? All can be used in your classroom to enrich global learning.

I'll keep posting free and low-cost resources and ideas here. You let me know about any more you're using successfully.

We're living in tough times, for sure. But (and I've said this before) teachers are tougher.

Is Globalization Dead?

Remember the joke in Citizen Kane about the failing global economy in the thirties? A reporter innocently asks Charles Foster Kane, just returned from abroad, "how did you find business conditions?"

Orson Welles, as Kane, mockingly repeats the question, and then answers, "with great difficulty!"

We may be hearing that sarcastic remark for some time to come. According to today's World Bank report, the global economy will shrink in 2009 for the first time since World War II.

If you've been teaching with Globalization 101, you'll be familiar with their definition of Globalization as a dramatic increase in connections between people of different nations, driven principally by finance and technology. So what happens when global finance starts to contract sharply? Is that the end of the global connections?

Not entirely. The effects of globalization are cultural, environmental, and political, as well as economic. The changes--good and bad--that have been set in motion by globalization will likely continue. As educators, we can continue to encourage the growth of the ties between our students and students all over the world. Global awareness and understanding is still possible, and is even more critical, as the situation stresses the economies of all nations, particularly the poorest.

Keep yourself informed, as always. A good source of information for educators is Globalization 101's news analyses on the situation as it develops.