Middle East Outreach

I'm still for teaching the world on a shoestring, for sure.  But now I'm the Outreach Director for the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies, so resources and support will have a distinctively Middle Eastern flavor.  I'll be adding to resources on our site in the coming weeks. 

And a good time for it!  We're all glued to events in Egypt and Tunisia and Bahrain and beyond. 

Have you been teaching the crucial role of Facebook, Twitter, and informal broadcasting in Egypt?    If so, you may be interested in this recent video from Cairo.  It's a response to international support (also conveyed by social media) in beautiful images and many different languages.  Enjoy!

Nobel Peace Prize 2010--The Missing Laureate

Here's where Liu Xiaobo would have appeared onstage to the receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  During the presentation ceremony in Oslo today, Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland placed the Peace Prize on the empty chair. 

In the Laureate's absence, Norwegian actress and director Liv Ullman read aloud a statement written by Liu shortly before his imprisonment.  You can read the full text here.

Fully Funded Teacher Trip to South Africa

Thanks to the NC Council for the Social Studies for passing along this exciting news--

The Toyota International Teacher Program will be traveling to South Africa for the first time next year.  The trip is scheduled for July 24 – August 10, 2011, and is fully funded.  Deadline for applying is January 23, 2011.  

Do you qualify?  "Applicants must hold U.S. citizenship; be employed full time as a secondary classroom teacher or teacher-librarian (grades 7 – 12) in one of the 50 State or the District of Columbia; and have a least three years of full-time teaching experience."

If this sounds like you, please do look into this great opportunity.

The Toyota International Teacher Program already travels to Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador.  The focus is on supporting teachers in including more global and environmental learning in their classrooms and communities.  

Read more about these great (and fully funded!) programs here.  And get your application together over the winter break!

Geography Awareness Week

Get ready for Geography Awareness Week (November 14-20). The theme this year is freshwater. 

You can look into some fun ways to celebrate in the My Wonderful World blog post.   And you can download  projects focused on U.S. rivers and North Carolina river basins at the website of our own NC Geographic Alliance here.

Let's hear it for freshwater!

Nobel Prize Week--Economics

The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded jointly to Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides "for their analysis of markets with search frictions." 

"Frictions" sounds as if we're in the realm of physics.  But in an economic context, "frictions" refer to the inefficiencies that slow down a process (think finding a job or a buyer for your house).  Read more about the Laureates' work here.  (The Popular Information links on the NobelPrize.org site offer very clear and well-written explanations of all the Laureates' research.)

As I've mentioned, all the Laureates we've heard about this week are global heroes.  Use their stories and their work to connect students globally across the curriculum.  NobelPrize.org offers ideas for teaching here.

If you've got your own lesson plan or a strategy for using the Nobel Prize and the Laureates' work in your classroom, let me know.  Email me at higginsteachingatgmaildotcom, and  I'll feature your idea in a future post. 

Nobel Prize Week--Peace

"For his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China," Liu Xiaobo has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010.  

But chances are he won't be publicly accepting the award and delivering the traditional speech in Oslo.  He's currently serving an eleven-year prison term in China for "inciting subversion of state power."  (Liu Xiaobo has insisted that "Opposition is not equivalent to subversion.")

China's leadership has been described as "livid."  The spokesperson for China's foreign office called the selection "an obscenity."

Liu Xiaobo is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize, and the third Laureate to be awarded the Peace Prize while incarcerated.  (The others are Carl von Ossietzky and Aung San Suu Kyi.)

Read more about Liu Xiaobo here.  And follow this evolving story with your students.

Nobel Prize Week--Literature

Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa has won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat."

In his novels, Llosa explores the theme of power in Latin America, especially the effect of political power (and corruption) on the lives of ordinary people.  And he certainly hasn't avoided controversy.  In fact, his first published novel (La ciudad y los perros, published in English as The Time of the Hero) was publicly burned in Lima.   

Llosa's fiction has long been acclaimed, and he's a popular writer both in Spanish and in translation. (Take a look at the congratulations from readers around the world.)

Read more about Llosa here.  And stand by for some well deserved media attention for a great writer.  NPR is already offering commentary on what's bound to be a very popular choice for the Prize.

Update:  Hear Llosa's response to the Prize here.