A Community of Education

"I can UNDERSTAND pessimism, but I don't BELIEVE in it. It's not simply a matter of faith, but of historical EVIDENCE. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give HOPE, because for hope we don't need certainty, only POSSIBILITY" (Zinn). 

We as teachers certainly can't expect our students to become meaningful contributors to society if we do not allow them the opportunity to be exposed to global ideas.  We have the power to virtually experience life around the world without leaving the classroom.  Technology has made it so we are able to study other cultures, understand their politics, and engage in multiple perspectives.

Early on in my graduate program, we had a group project to create a lesson plan that had a global perspective.  Since many of my group's members were future English teachers, we chose global poetry as a focus for our work.  Our lesson plan can be found by clicking on the link below.

Global Poetry Lesson Plan 

Many of the submissions we reviewed were taken from Teen Ink, an online forum for teen writing.  

Teen Ink 

This quarter, as I prepared my 10th grade class to read Lord of the Flies, we discussed the idea of the infamous Spiderman motto, "With great power comes great responsibility."  The students recognized they were indeed fortunate to live in a country that values education and freedom.  At my behest, they examined multiple causes in need of financial support and composed PowerPoint presentations on them, using the power of persuasion (ethos, pathos, and logos), to convince their classmates that their cause was the worthiest of our help.  At the end of the presentations, the students voted and chose to help fund efforts to provide clean water to students in Cambodia.  We are currently holding a Read-A-Thon to raise money for our chosen cause.  The students are not only reading for their own advancement, but for the advancement of students on the other side of the globe.  

Global Giving Project

I currently teach at a school that is over 43% Hispanic, 23% Caucasian, 22% Asian, and 10% other ethnicities.  I have made it my mission to not only seek out differentiated activities, ones that people from all cultures can find a connection with, but differentiated theorists and educators as well.  Both Paulo Freire and Howard Zinn have been a resource in my understanding and growth as a teacher of multiple and diverse cultures.  Their work to educate the masses, no matter what walks of life they hail from, has been an inspiration for me and my work.  Please visit the link below to learn more about the Zinn Education Project.

Zinn Education Project  

Lastly, I am currently collaborating with my mentor on a dynamic global non-fiction project that utilizes articles about current situations as catalysts for writing projects, including persuasive essays and thesis developments.  In addition to the non-fiction articles, we are examining various TED talks.  TED conferences host some of the brightest minds around the globe who give dynamic speeches about current events.  

TED