0.6 Education for a global society  (Page 16/3)

Teachers without borders

From TWB website:

Teachers are the largest single group of trained professionals in the world and the key to our children's future. Teachertraining is often uneven, protracted, or unsupported. Teachers need our assistance; otherwise, we are left with poverty, lack of development, and agaping digital, educational, and economic divide. Every major global report considers teacher development an urgent, collective necessity indeveloped and developing nations. Teachers need to connect to, give, and receive information quickly, and in multiple languages.

If the key to economic development and our young people's future is education, then teachers should have resources, tools,and access to the Internet, as well as each other. Even more, the resources of the community - its natural wisdom, its culture, its connection to the landand to history - must be treasured, acknowledged, and celebrated.

The education divide is not one-sided. Many "developed" countries are bereft and rudderless, yet are surrounded bymodern comforts. Many "undeveloped" countries have rich resources they cannot access. All peoples suffer when we are disconnected from each other.Some need technology and infrastructure development; others need consultation and development. All peoples need education as a bindingforce. Education, in this era, requires global citizenry.

Teachers Without Borders was designed along the model of a circle; we receive as a charity and we give as a trade. The organization ISits collective wisdom; every member represents teachers everywhere. We are therefore able to work in emergencies, as part of national reformefforts, and with relief organizations or charities precisely because we rely on local expertise. That expertise, in turn, is a resource for others.So, the more we give, the more we receive.

We do not claim a one-size fits all model. Our "peer-education" approach ensures a "virtuous cycle" of data exchangeamong educators worldwide. We work toward the empowerment and enhancement of education efforts already in place, to increase long-term and localsupport, rather than sporadic, short-lived interventions. Education should not be limited to schools alone, but to wherever a community gathers.

Global collaboration opportunities

You have chosen to embark upon a plan of professional development because there is no such thing as a continental cocoon. Toremain static, in this age, is to move backwards. The articles you have been reading and your conversations with colleagues must have inspired you, insome fashion, to participate in shaping a new world for the 21st century. In so doing, you are helping generations to come.

As you begin to explore the possibilities for cross-cultural interaction, global classroom projects, and new learningopportunities, you will come across several programs in existence. We have listed sites, below that may spark some ideas for you as you work on a GlobalCollaboration project with your learning circle and their students in Assignment 8: