Global Competency. If you haven’t learned or heard of this term yet, go ahead and google it. I’ll be honest, I never of this term until today, but when I read the description, I know that I do embrace this philosophy. I’m no expert, but I invite you to learn along with me.
I’ve started reading David Geurin’s book Future Driven and I am hooked. When I get hooked on something, I become obsessed with learning all that I can. Today, it was all about Global Competency and why we need this in our classrooms.
I would define global competencies as developing an understanding and awareness of other cultures' perspective as a critical piece in preparing learners for life and work in the 21st century.
If you want students to make connections globally, they must first learn to understand the culture. Culture is multifaceted. Teachers need to pay close attention to how they approach teaching it because culture is married to empathy. It’s not a skill you can teach overnight.
In order for the learner to be a future-ready learner, they must have a self-awareness and make connections with the philosophical perspectives, the behavioral practices, and the products of the culture they are studying.
In promoting empathy, let's take a look at how this would manifest in content. Rather than adding culture as an afterthought, begin a new unit by examining cultural images and artifacts and authentic materials that can tap a learners' interest.
Going forward with what I learned about global competency, I will continue planning lessons that facilitate students making connections about what is shared between cultures.
I’m am excited to assign more project-based learning that is multidisciplinary, standards-aligned and allow students to contribute their creativity to the end product.
Global competency in the classroom can also look very "future driven” by prompting students to identify problems and providing solutions to these gaps. While I do believe that making connections is important, it is equally important to help learners expect differences and learn how to explain and analyze these observed differences.
That’s what I learned today! I have to get back to learning more about it and I hope I did this topic justice.
What do you think? How can you embrace this in your teaching practices going forward?
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Credit:
I learned the term Global Competency through the Participate website. Check them out on Twitter (@participate).
Future Driven by David Guerin is awesome! He is a must follow on Twitter as well (@davidgeurin). I’m still at the beginning chapters of his book but I am excited to learn more about preparing our students to be Future Ready Learners.
This is a website that I used to learn more about the term Global Competency: http://www.worldsavvy.org/global-competence/
