How can schools and learning environments for children and youth go global today?
For creating a global learning environment it is a precondition that the teacher is very open- minded concerning this topic and transfers this to his/her students. He/She has to act like a role model for the pupils and show them how to get global. For being able to teach global and develop the students’ intercultural competence. It is necessary that the teacher has various advanced teachings concerning the topic of globalisation. Otherwise the lessons would be unprofessional with no effect on the students’ education.
Furthermore it is important that also the students become open-minded concerning other cultures. Only then it is possible to teach global topics and to accomplish several projects.
From my point of view it is easy to create a global learning environment because in our western society our lives are actually globalized. Nearly everyone knows how to write an e-mail. So many pupils get more and more used to the medium Internet and therefore they prefer writing e-mails than writing an ordinary letter. Another example is that you don’t need to change money while travelling through Europe (accept a few countries) because of the Euro that came also because of globalisation. And when students go abroad, they can also “stay” at home- achieved with the help of Skype and webcams.
To put it in a nutshell- globalisation can be found in our everyday lives and the task of the teacher is, to use it for education. And, of course, the medium Internet can easily be used in the classroom for creating a global learning environment as well as teaching the topic globalisation.
In fact there exist many programs that help the teacher to go global in the school. From my point of view a really good Internet platform is eTwinning. It is really easy to find partner institutions to carry out several projects. And as everything in the world, eTwinning is very international. You can find many schools in many European countries. Another advantage of using this platform is that it does not matter, which age group you are teaching. With younger children simple e-mail projects are possible where the pupils start to write about their hobbies. With the help of those projects the pupils develop their intercultural competence what is of course a big aim of globalised lessons. Furthermore teachers can use the Comenius programme to go global. Comenius offers several projects or as an inventive teacher you can prepare an own project and search for partner schools. The good thing is that Comenius supports the schools with money to travel to the other country visiting the school and implement the projects. Me as a future primary school teacher asked myself if exchanges are also possible with younger children and eventually I decided that it is possible, although it needs more time to prepare.
But nevertheless it is not necessary to travel in a foreign country to create global learning. Teachers can use very simple methods to do this, e.g. invite parents who do not have the same culture, watch movies with the children or just visit international schools, which most of the larger cities have. The children can work on different projects together with the international pupils.
On top of that it is important that the learning environment (classroom and the school) are prepared. That means that there are enough computers with internet access, that the school has the possibility to use skype conferences with other schools and there is much flexible room for several projects. Than it is really easy to teach global as a teacher and learn global as a student.
