Education in the 21st Century Seminar

Last night I attended a seminar on "Education in the 21st Century: Preparing Students and Teachers for a Global Society." I was slightly disappointed, it focused mainly on those who were education majors (like benefits and programs for them) instead of really going into what it takes to become a better teacher and a better student for better global understanding.  It was still pretty interesting though, and it did bring up a few programs that I didn't know existed.

I have always been familiar with the student teaching program in North Carolina, I have had several student teachers in my classrooms throughout the years.  It gives students the best possible experience while giving a well deserved break for the teachers.  NC State isn't the first to offer this program, however they have implemented a Student Teaching Abroad program which I believe should be a high priority for student teachers to do.  Students still have to do the minimum 10 weeks in North Carolina, but they spend anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 weeks in another country.  Currently they have the choice of two different schools in China, Brazil, India, London, and they are trying to begin a program in Turkey.

They have only had two sessions of it so far but will be offering four sessions in the spring.  I can only imagine this to be an invaluable experience.  Education systems in different countries, namely in China, have a very different way of doing education.  A program like this allows teachers to gain a new perspective and take what's the best of the other education and what is the best of America's education system and put them together.  Unfortunately, teachers now are so concerned about meeting standardized testing scores that it makes it next to impossible to include anything else in the classroom.

One of the magnet schools in Raleigh have a wonderful global perspectives program, the Wiley International School.  The principal of the school, Katie McMahon, was another panelist at the seminar and talked about what her school did.  They have eight periods in a day and have many choices for electives, including several languages.  There have been students that have gone from kindergarten through high school learning Japanese and are next to fluent by the time they graduate.  They have classes that focus on peer relationship building and other global perspective courses as well.

While I believe that the school is wonderful, I hate that not every school is required to be as rigorous as Wiley is.  That should be a standard school, not a special magnet school that some students would be unable to afford going to.  However, I am still impressed by the school and I hope more schools begin following its example.

Another program that I believe should be standard is the International Baccalaureate that is offered currently at a very minimum amount of schools.  Wiley International is one of those; however I had never even heard of it until I went to the seminar. When I talked to my roommate about it, it was an option at her high school to do.  She said it was very difficult to do, and she went through the "engineering" route instead.  She went to a larger high school near a state capital so understandably they offer a lot more options.  At my high school, I was offered a technical path, a two-year college path, and a four-year university path.  That was it.  While they did offer a few AP courses (college level), they were the standard AP courses that most schools have such as Calculus, English, and U.S. History.  I highly regret not doing more at my high school, and I hate that I wasn't really encouraged to either.

The IB Program requires students to take classes much more seriously and to take international understanding courses as well as more intensive language courses.  I realize that it more than likely costs a lot of money to add on, however if we are able to get the majority of American students to be internationalized early on, then I have a feeling that we can reduce military spending drastically due to its limited need.  Not to mention that a great education beginning in elementary school will drastically reduce the amount of people on welfare and "smart" jobs going unfilled.

I feel as though it is only a matter of time that schools become standardized internationally, not just by state or country.  I hope to see this happen in my lifetime!

Unfortunately, to do any of that would require a major overhaul and several million dollars per state to achieve.  No state will be willing to do that in the current state of things even if it is probably one of the number one priorities we should have.  We are creating more and more generations of "dumb" students and are unable to compete academically with so many other countries.  We are running out of innovators and scholars, and while that is well known, it is commonly overlooked.