Global Work at the DMV

Do your students tell you, "oh, I don't need to know all that global stuff to get a job. I'm going to work right here in North Carolina"?

Tell them to think again.

Last week I went to the local DMV office to renew my driver's license. (Always a thrill, of course.) While sitting on a hard plastic chair and reviewing the road signs, I saw some significant global interaction.

People from Asia, Europe, and Latin America were in the office to get their North Carolina driver's license. Some were still perfecting their English-speaking skills, or still getting used to living in another country. (And let's all take a minute to think about how we'd feel as we tried to get our license in, say, Brazil.)

The license examiner explained the procedure carefully and helped each person to find the necessary identification in their passports and immigration documents. She was not only professional, but friendly and supportive in serving each customer.

Understanding international bureaucracy. Coping with language challenges. Being sensitive to cultural differences. Our students will need these skills everywhere they work. Tell them about it.

Windows on Iran

A short post to alert you to a great resource in following the events in Iran. Fatemeh Keshavarz, who teaches at Washington University at St. Louis, has been blogging about post-election developments.

Windows on Iran began a year or so ago as a series of emails about contemporary cultural life in Iran. I signed up for them when I heard Keshavarz read from her insightful book Jasmine and Stars in Chapel Hill. Now, of course, Keshavarz is focusing on the crisis in Iran following the election, as well as responses from the rest of the world.

Keshavarz's blog is a clear and thoughtful call in a time of chaos. Well worth following.

Summer at the Library

School's out. Time to head for your local library. We give students that good advice. But do you take it yourself?

This week, go to your community library and check out their global resources. Preview the illustrated books on countries you'll be featuring next year. Take some time to read more about a country or world region you've always wanted to teach. Look for CDs with international music (Putamayo offers a great selection of music from all over the world). And take some language-learning recordings home with you. Learn some greetings in French and German and Chinese and Spanish and Russian. Good way to start the new school year!

Find out, as well, what online resources your library can offer you remotely, from your computer at home. You may be able to download music, articles, even language lessons. Ask a librarian what's available, and how you can take advantage of it. They're happy to help. And it's free.

See you at the library!

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.

Culture Kits

Here's a teacher's dream.

You ask for a box of really cool, authentic stuff from the country you're teaching and it shows up at your school. With someone to explain it all. Free.

If you're a North Carolina teacher, this is no dream. This is the service offered by Carolina Navigators, a program in the Center for Global Initiatives at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The culture kit pictured here is from Taiwan, and comes with ideas about activities for your classroom. You can also choose among kits from Azerbaijan, Bahrain, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Holland, India, Japan, Jordan, Kenya and Ghana, Malaysia, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, Pakistan, Panama, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Tajikistan, Thailand, Trinidad, Turkey, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. You can browse through all the available culture kits here.

Where's the catch? There is none. Just request your kit at a reasonable time in advance, so you'll be sure to have it when you need it. Find out more about borrowing a (free!) culture kit here.

Earth Day Every Day

This Wednesday, April 22nd, we'll celebrate our 39th Earth Day. Yes, we've been especially remembering our vital connection to the life of the earth on this day for thirty-nine years. To recap (and start preparing for next year's big 40th), you can read a short history of Earth Day, written by its founder, Senator Gaylord Nelson.

But shouldn't we be conscious of our reliance on earth's resources every day? Definitely. That's why LEARN NC offers Focus on Planet Earth with interactive sites, great lessons, and field trip ideas for North Carolina teachers. Bookmark this site and revisit it regularly--not just next week--for classroom resources for local and global environmental learning.

By all means, let's plant a special seedling or tree on Earth Day. But every day we can teach that our personal and public decisions about the environment are important for our shared life on earth. That's sustainable global learning.

Food for Thought

It's spring break around here, with the daily reminder that there are countless ways to get hooked into some online activity. Invariably you suddenly find that hours have passed, and you haven't accomplished anything.

If you or your out-of-school students are looking for some online fun that produces actual, calculable, and beneficial global results, go to FreeRice. Put your vocabulary to the test, and you'll earn free rice (10 grains per correct answer) for the world's hungry. The sponsors whose banner appear on the site fund the food you earn by playing.

FreeRice is produced by the United Nations World Food Programme with its partner, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Since the site opened in 2007, more than 60 billion grains of rice have been donated. The rice has been distributed in Bangladesh, Uganda, Cambodia, Nepal, and other countries where hunger is a continuing problem.

The default page offers the vocabulary quiz, but click on Subjects and you'll find quizzes on art, chemistry, English grammar, and math. And if you want to test your global knowledge (and why not?), try the Geography challenges (identifying countries and capitals) and Language quizzes (French, Spanish, German, and Italian).

Miss a question? Don't worry. You'll find out the correct answer right away and be given a second chance in just a while. Then you'll nail it!

Sharpen global knowledge while feeding the world's hungry. Now that's a reason to stay online just a little while longer.