Global Learning: Ready for Anything...

Global Learning: Ready for Everything – Ready for Action.

A few years ago a school trustee asked me how his school could improve their image, so they could increase their enrollment. Having started three schools, I knew this question well. I believe the solution to such problems has to do with shining a light on what makes a school stand apart from all other schools. To do this, a school community needs to embrace continuous improvement, really embrace it – as a call to ongoing action. 

When we shared our strategic plan for the Giles School on our website, we were not sharing state secrets. We were simply setting the bar high, not placing any ceiling on all we could do. When reading the ambitious lists of experiences, the question for future parents should be “What are they going to do next?” Evidence of ongoing initiatives makes it clear to future families that a progressive school is going to prepare students not just for now – but for the future, and that means they need exposure to many different kinds of experiences.

I’ve spent much time in my career paying attention to the fit between the program and a school’s documented “mission” and “vision”. I see the mission as “what is”, and the “vision” as where it can lead. Schools with integrity have ample evidence to support their mission claims. What tends to be on the leaner side of things is evidence of moving towards a stated vision. 

So I asked this trustee to describe how his school was meeting its’ mission, and he clearly had oodles of examples to support their mission claims. The school had a mix of student demographics, half international boarding students, and half the students were pretty much Caucasian. The concern was that the cultures were not connecting, acting like two schools under one roof. Many schools will start a character education program to tick off a box. I, however, suggested they consider the idea of becoming a Model United Nations laboratory school, revising the curriculum and the inquiry project work to focus on solving current and anticipated world problems together. The collaboration would inspire empathy and concern for problems outside our own homes. At the time, I did not know of other schools with such a vision, so this might have been a fresh offer for the community; at the same time it might attract new admissions.

I’m not sure what that school trustee did with the idea, but a few months later, I saw an advertisement for the principal position at the Giles School. When I first read that it was a predominantly French immersion school, I really didn’t think that someone who did not speak French would be a good fit. I was, however, drawn to the “small” school size, and the interest of the Board members in supporting the development of an innovative and leading edge strategic plan. If I was going to return to a school, I wanted to be sure I could be part of a culture that was committed to being great, not just very good, but exceptional, worthy of the students’ time and family loyalty. To this end, when I discovered the talents of the teachers, it became clear that the Giles setting was ideal to build on the French immersion in the early years to a more concentrated English focus in the upper years, with varied exposures to Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian, as the small staff had the capacity to offer experiences in all six of the official United Nations languages. The vision morphed into preparing our students to be ‘world ready’. Recognizing it was not enough to prepare young people with multi-language exposure, we added three years of Model United Nations classes for all grade 6 to 8 students, adding an applied global learning experience to their Social Studies course. We also moved our mission to understanding culture through “language and industry”, and with the added emphasis on industry, we added robotics, coding and chess as part of math. Students were responsible for working with teachers to publish poetry books, memory books, and newspapers. A group of students designed and created a recording studio and are currently preparing scripts for our first Radio Giles broadcast.  We paid serious attention to what experiences would truly benefit and engage a globally-minded and ready student body. 

We also realized that knowledge and skills in liberal arts and science courses would not be enough. A focus on inclusion was nourished through civics and leadership classes. Students were excited about their portfolios that included creating pledges and campaigns to promote Earth Hour, setting up a composting program, planting trees, building a butterfly sanctuary garden (planting milkweed), managing a new bookstore, a school museum and an e-hospital for electronic patients in the school in need of repairs. Students created stamp clubs and coin clubs to examine the images in more depth to find out more about the landscapes and people featured on their currency and stamps from other countries. To add to these projects, students collected funds to support school, community and global service projects. 

It didn’t take long for the mission to evolve into three key “I’s:” Being International; Being Innovative and Being Inclusive. When the community establishes initiatives as parts of the culture, then they contribute to the mission, leaving more room and expectations for new initiatives to carve out a path that can prepare our young people to make a global difference in their next schools, world of work and personal lives.

We believe that such a school will attract the number of families needed to be small and sustainable, but even more significant is that the Giles School will prepare students to be ready for anything, ready for action. How do other schools make global citizens? It would be great to begin a conversation, share more actions, and perhaps build a collaborative network of ambitious educators committed to making memories of the global citizen kind.