C.M. Rubin’s Global Education Report
An opportunity to learn about other cultures and ways of life directly from one’s international peers themselves seems like an obvious way to nurture global competencies. Joe Troyen is the Founder of PenPal Schools, an organization that connects over a quarter million students from 150 countries to learn together through collaborative online projects. Everything from human rights to environmental sustainability to literature to robotics is built into the curriculum enabling students to study with classrooms around the globe and develop a range of skills including reading, writing, digital literacy, and intercultural competence. Feedback from teachers indicated that students were “extremely motivated” to read the texts and write persuasive answers because, for the first time, they were writing to a real person and not just their teacher. The Global Search for Education welcomed Joe Troyen this month to talk about what’s next for PenPal Schools.
How do you contextualize STEAM education and upskill students and teachers with timely knowledge, competencies and skills that are required for the modern workplace? Youth Made Initiative is a collaboration between educators and industry that brings together the design and technology departments in schools with local design and manufacturing industries. The founder of the program is Ryan Ball. While working in Malaysia, Ryan discovered a lack of understanding about design and tech among students and their parents. Many of his students wanted to study both subjects but the opportunities in the school curriculum didn’t exist, although “the design and manufacturing industries were in abundance.” Ryan reached out to local companies and began creating learning-by-doing opportunities for his own students with local companies. The Global Search for Education welcomed Ryan this month to find out more about the program.
Raising awareness about the potential of people with intellectual disabilities has been a primary focus of the Special Olympics. Billy Seide has been participating in the Special Olympics since 1999. In 2007, he went to Shanghai in China for the Special Olympics world summer games in softball, and his team earned 3rd place. In 2016, he switched to the Sound Shore Stars because it was closer to where he lived. Currently he helps out and participates in floor hockey, basketball, swimming, unified bowling, track and field, and the pentathlon. Professor William P. Alford is Lead Director and Chair of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Special Olympics International, which serves individuals with intellectual disabilities in more than 170 jurisdictions around the world. In 2004, Alford helped found the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (HPOD). He describes the organization’s goals, noting they are “to be of assistance as the UN drafted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” and to be “a resource about disability law and policy both in nations that have ratified the Convention and beyond.” The Global Search for Education welcomed both Seide and Alford this month to talk about the power of sports to disrupt disability.
Eva Dominguez is the Founder and Director of MINUSHU, a start-up devoted to creating innovative storytelling experiences with AR and VR technologies, and Creator of NUSHU, an animated adventures series on international current affairs which uses augmented reality and virtual reality technologies to present global news stories to children. Dominguez believes that children should have the same “right to access information as adults” and that the best way to engage them in their world is to tell stories and narratives in an engaging and compelling way. Eva joined us in The Global Search for Education to talk about the new age of storytelling in the digital era.
Thank you to our 800 plus global contributors, teachers, entrepreneurs, researchers, business leaders, students and thought leaders from every domain for sharing your perspectives on the future of learning with The Global Search for Education each month.
C. M. Rubin (Cathy) is the Founder of CMRubinWorld, an online publishing company focused on the future of global learning, and the co-founder of Planet Classroom. She is the author of three best-selling books and two widely read online series.Rubin received 3 Upton Sinclair Awards for “The Global Search for Education.” The series, which advocates for Youth, was launched in 2010 and brings together distinguished thought leaders from around the world to explore the key education issues faced by nations.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
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