One Good Question

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3/15/16 3/15/16

One Good Question with Chris Plutte: Can Global Understanding Help us Address Race Issues in the US?

This post is part of a series of interviews with international educators, policy makers, and leaders titled “One Good Question.” These interviews provide answers to my One Good Question and uncover new questions about education’s impact on the future.

“In what ways do our investments in education reveal our beliefs about the next generation’s role in the world?”

There’s a genuine interest in wanting to be global but folks don’t know where to start. When you ask someone how they’re working towards the goals of being global citizens, they are very few examples. We’re still a current event on a Friday at 1pm. That’s how schools go global. I don’t think we’re preparing kids for a global society at all. We’re failing at that. We are thinking about right now, but not 2030 or 2045 when we’ll be more connected than we already are. We’re not teaching the kids skills of communication and collaboration across countries. There’s a shift that needs to happen from competition against Finland and Singapore to collaboration with Finland and Singapore. Then we need to work backwards with the skills that young people need to develop for that new economy.

Personally, I come to this from a peace-building lens. How do you bring people together who don’t understand each other and are in perceived conflict with each other? We’re living in a world where people are bouncing up against each other and don’t have the skills to navigate that. Ten to fifteen years ago, we had diplomats sitting in capitals representing our values and cultures to other communities. We’re now side-by-side engaging and we don’t know how to do that intercultural communication. We won’t be able to do that until we engage whole communities—parents and educators to become global citizens. Give them the tools, experience, and opportunities to inquire about how the world is outside of their own city. Then they can be inspired to share those with the young people that they’re educating. The investment is really with the adults right now as much as with the students.

“You’re the first American educator in this interview series to bring up peace as a function of education.”

When we talk about race, there’s a conversation there about peace, but we’re looking for peace within our communities. I’m curious about how global can help local. I’m stuck on Einstein’s idea that no problem can be solved in the conditions in which it was created. The idea that you have to leave the environment to solve the problem. I wonder if there’s an opportunity to expand on that and talk about race issues and conflict issues. There’s such massive Islamophobia in the US. At Global Nomads Group, we focus on linking US schools and Muslim-majority countries. Part of it is building compassion and empathy for one another. That’s a muscle that gets developed. It’s perhaps easier to have a conversation around Islamophobia than race issue in your own community. Can you build that muscle globally and then pivot and use it to address race issues in the US? As an organization, we’re trying to explore that possibility.

When we think of global citizenship in the US, we think about teeing up Americans to be global citizens. But you can’t be a global citizen by yourself. There’s a perspective called Ubuntu-- I am me because you are you. You need the « other » to be a global citizen. Right now it’s a taking, how can we take from other places to be global? It’s not about taking. It’s about navigating within an ecosystem with others who are also global citizens and navigating yourself with different experiences. It’s a long-play. It has to be cultivated and integrated over years.

“What are the first steps to change?”

I need to articulate to people what the world actually is and be a bit of a futurist. When the educator or administrator sees themselves as a global citizen, then they can champion it. Peace Corps, Army Brats, and Third Culture Kids seek out Global Nomad Group to impact their classrooms. The big question is how do you move beyond those converted communities and get the larger community engaged in demanding it? That’s what we need right now. We need larger communities demanding it for their children and their schools in an authentic real way.

“So many educators in urban settings regard this work as esoteric or enrichment. How do you start from that perspective?”

Where we are, you have to work with the willing : networks, districts and charters who are willing to partner with you and can be an example to others. People need to be able to have some type of anchors and understand that they can do that too. I certainly felt in my fellowship that I was with these rock star educators who are trying to get kids to graduate high school. Who am I to say, By the way, you should also go global. I struggle with this. We have a problem here in the US, but in comparison to rural schools that meet under trees in the blistering sun, we also live an extraordinary opportunity. We can create a community in which people are engaging globally and that will help their local communities. That’s how I approach it with those folks: Problem-solving. For me, if you would weave that together with problem-solving and peace-building and race issues—that woven together often will resonate with the ed reform community. Not everyone, but enough entry points to move away from being the fringe in order to get a small place at the table. And we need those entry points right now.

“With Global Nomads group, you answered one of the fundamental questions about access to get youth in developing nations connected with their global peers. What student-led action are you seeing for youth on both sides of the experience as a result of their participation?”

All of our programs are project-based. So when you’re paired with a school, you have to identify a problem within your community that your going to help answer based on this program. We had a group in Pakistan focus on girls’ education and girls in their community not going to school. In the US, it was a recycling and environmental program for trash in their community. We work together and compare and contrast and offer ideas to each other. The results for the Pakistan students were that they actually did a community awareness about girls’ education, met with families of the girls, raised money and got scholarships for local schools to get the girls enrolled in schools. Just last week, a US school who is connected in Gaza actually planned a whole week(!!) to do a program around educating their community on Islam. The action was really inspired by the young people in the US hearing from their Palestinian counterparts on how their own stereotypes and stigmas impacted their community. That was a result of their programs.

Chris' One Good Question: How do I get global citizenship to be as important as trigonometry? How do I get the broader ed reform community engaged and demanding this?

Chris Plutte is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Global Nomads Group (GNG). Founded in 1998, GNG is an international non-profit whose mission is to foster dialogue and understanding among the world's youth. In 2008, Plutte worked overseas for Search for Common Ground (SFCG) as Chief of Party and Country Director for Rwanda. He opened and directed all of SFCG's programs in the country and oversaw cross border initiatives in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. During his two-years in the African Great Lakes region, Plutte introduced innovative programs for peace building using technology in the classroom and secured new funding for program growth and expansion. He rejoined GNG in 2010 as the Executive Director. Plutte received his B.A. in International Communications from the American University of Paris.

3/8/16 3/8/16

When Women Succeed, the World Succeeds. #IWD2016

In honor of International Women's Day/ Journée des Droits des Femmes, a look back at Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka's talk "When women succeed, the world succeeds."

We need to get decision makers to stop seeing women as the problem or charity case. We will not overcome inequality or poverty or sustainable peace if we do not improve the lives of women. There are only 20 women heads of state in the world. if we had more female leaders we would not be in this state. Women are part of creating the world we all want. We have to invest in women. When you leave women out, you compromise the rest of the nation.

What it will take for more governments, institutions, schools, etc. to understand that improving the lives of girls and women will increase opportunities for the entire society?

12/22/15 12/22/15

One Good Question with Zaki Hasan: Move Bangladesh from Fashion Economy to Thought Economy.

Zaki Hasan, (photo credit: Mr. Saikat Majumder)

“In what ways do our investments in education reveal our beliefs about the next generation’s role in the world?”

If you talk about the philosophy of education, in Bangladesh, we’re still like 17th century Europe – an industrial country focused on economic equities : jobs, food, survival. We’re not talking about which common social values the world should have. After I earn the money in my skilled job, do I understand the value of human life in this world ? Unfortunately, what happens when there is not enough employment or job security, people turn to unethical means to survive. There must be some global values system that we start talking about in education. Will that not be the number one problem when we’re trying to kill each other not from lack of money but due to lack of accepting diversity ? Who will solve this ? The medical system will not. The political system will not. Only education can do this.Bangladesh is a young country. Since the independence, I broadly categorize the generations into three: the first generation questioned the injustice and owned the country’s independence, the second generation questioned autocracy and has started the journey of democracy 24 years back , and now the third generation is questioning our journey without a vision and we are heading to a bright and shiny future. This journey would only be successful when our children are equally ready through education to make the journey. This generation and generations after this need to understand the values that the previous generations had started building this country on i.e. justice and democracy, which must continue to improve in creating a society based on equity.We need a different education investment framework and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals give us a reasonable starting point. There are some missing focuses though. For example, in the next 15 years, when we talk about basic literacy, it has to take into account how differently we have started communicating by using technology than what it had been so far in the form of in person communication and written scripts. The long discussed issue of digital divide is becoming a much more complex issue in the coming days. For example, a person with post-graduation education from Bangladesh today might have less exposure to new technologies than a typical elementary school child in the US. There has to be more investment in education, especially in the methods of communication, to decrease such the global achievement gap. The developed countries still have a lot to improve, but they are still focused on their immediate crisis of economic survival than equally having social value creation and even equally important aspect of transforming our children into thought leaders. Least developed countries need a radical restructuring of education. We’ll stay stuck in factories and providing good clothes to wear, but developing countries will continue to rise in thought economy. We have to change the education system to allow people to think freely and creatively.

“In Bangladesh, you've been instrumental in growing global education programming. How effective are western innovations/models in improving education gains in Bangladesh? Are there other US education initiatives that would advance education access?”

My visits to public, community schools in US were bittersweet. Children there have an assurance that they can go to school in their area. Common Core State Standards had just been rolled out and it was wonderful to see that federal and state system have agreed to core common standards and still had the freedom to apply them in their own way. The most beautiful moments I had were observing student-teacher interactions. I visited Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy and, at first, I couldn’t understand the role of the teacher and the student. Sometimes the student was leading the class and the teacher was in the back of the room. The roles seemed interchangeable and that made me happy.Here, going to school is like winning a lottery ticket. Even if you get access to a school, you cannot assure that the quality is maintained. In the classroom, many teachers are not trying to make learning interesting, they are trying to ‘teach’ children instead of making children interested to ‘learn’. Education can be important to empower students to take control of the class. The classroom environment that I saw in the US is something that would be beautiful. No one wants to feel inferieor, not even your 3 year old child. I don’t know how it happened in the US and how it could happen in Bangladesh. If the US reached consensus on CCSS in 2012, maybe we can do it here by 2022. If we can shift to more inclusive pedagogy, especially children-focused learning, the next generation will believe that more is possible in all schools.

Zaki’s One Good Question : Bangladesh has made lots of progress to educate more people in our society, but we see that the system is not yet producing a respectful society. Education is about creating global peace. Are we matching what we really want to accomplish through education ? Are we missing the way that education should be defined?

Zaki Hasan is currently serving as the Executive Director (ED) of Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programs Bangladesh (UCEP).He has worked in various sub-sectors of education including Technical Education, Early Childhood Development, Primary Education, Secondary Education, Adult Education, Girls Education and ICT-aided Education. He has been member in various boards and committees on issues/organizations involved in education. He has numerous publications including editor of more than 20 children books. He was also the founding Country Director of Room to Read Bangladesh. He has worked for several other non-profit international organizations such as Save The Children, ActionAid, and Helen Keller Intl. Zaki Hasan is an Eisenhower Fellow.

9/21/15 9/21/15

Culture Makes People Understand Each Other Better.

9/21/15 9/21/15

Did I offer peace today?

Too often we expect that peace happens to us, that someone else gives us peace or extends the olive branch. We expect that peace happens around us, institutions and organizations and entities make peace. For this year's International Day of Peace, let's focus on how we are each offering peace to ourselves and others.

9/2/15 9/2/15

One Good Question

"I want to ask one good question."That's all? I can ask one good question now. That's what I thought when I heard my colleague share her intellectual goal for the new school year. I had no idea how difficult it would be to ask my students one good question, a question that wasn't leading, that didn't tip my hand or reveal my beliefs, that didn't force students to defend a single position, nor one that allowed them to respond solely with anecdote and opinion.In the fall of 2003 I was working with new peers in the second year of Baccalaureate School for Global Education in Queens, NY. This was the year that would challenge my teaching forever. Over ten years later, I'm still challenging myself to ask one good question. My work in international education has changed, but the need for good questions remains. In this blog I will be exploring international education and access for all students through multiple lenses, but all with the same question: In what ways do our investments in education reveal our beliefs about the next generation's role in the world?Spoiler alert: I am completely biased. My education career is built on ways that we are increasing access and opportunity for all students to connect with the world outside of their local neighborhood: multilingualism, cross-cultural and intercultural competencies, international perspectives, peace-building, youth action and agency, socio-economic diversity. I look forward to having my assumptions challenged and learning innovative ways that different countries, communities, and schools are answering this question.