Teacher Talk

Here are two examples of how teenagers – actually – 12 year olds, who made a difference and it became huge…

Hoops of Hope – started by Austin Gutwein

Shooting basket ball hopes raised money for:

• $211,000 and built a medical testing lab/clinic in Sinazongwe, Zambia. This clinic will keep parents alive and prevent children from becoming orphans. We were told the clinic will save an entire generation.
• $85,000 to help build the Jonathan Sim Legacy School in Twachiyanda, Zambia. Now, 1,000 children are able to attend school.
• Raise $198,000 to build dormitories for 280 children at the Jonathan Sim School in Twachiyanda. ($77,000 already funded for girls dormitory – opened in August.)
• $82,000 to build 2 Orphan Hope Centers in Swaziland.
• $120,000 to complete the funding of the Chilala clinic.
• $41,000 to provide 250 bicycles & 750 mosquito nets to caregivers in Sinazongwe.
• $35,000 to care for 100 orphan children.

Check out the website and these videos

http://www.hoopsofhope.org/index.html

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_754g-beMQ[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6itzWT2pSN0[/youtube]

and

Free The Children was founded by 12-year-old Craig Kielburger in 1995 when he gathered 11 school friends to begin fighting child labour. Today, Free The Children is the world’s largest network of children helping children through education, with more than one million young people involved in our programs in 45 countries.

http://www.freethechildren.com/

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iar8xaJbJMU[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oKIXUjZ8Ag[/youtube]

What are the UN MDG’s? Have a look at this video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRx12QUv54&feature=fvst[/youtube]

Check out the following pages:

UN – MDG’s

World Bank – MDG Atlas

Choose 1 goal and write about how you/we could help achieve that goal.

Make it real! Be original! Be inspiring! Take initiative! Be a leader!

Not really the way I usually spend my Saturday nights… reading my grade 10 students’ blogs about globalization. I am not even half way done, but it’s a great way to get to know the students better and it’s been a great read. I have to say, this is one of the better kind of assignments I’ve had to grade. Blog-away!

After reading your essays on the question

Should we preserve language diversity or should we adopt a few global languages?

various other interesting questions emerge. Here are just a few:

• Some of you argue that one global language is more important than preserving languages because it allows economies to prosper. This leads to the question, is economic progress more important than culture and identity?
• If English and/or Chinese becomes the global language, does this mean that their culture also becomes dominant?
• How is the spread and use of English different from Chinese and what are the implications of these differences?
• To what extent is it our personal choice to preserve a language or is it beyond our individual control?
• Does learning a global language such as English or Chinese automatically imply the loss of another language? Could we not be bilingual?

What do you think???

My grade 10 Geography students are writing about how globalization is affecting their culture(s) and identity. We are studying this topic because globalization is everywhere. We live it daily, it is part of us, yet many of us don’t think about how globalization is actually impacting us. So my goal is to make us more conscious of these global forces (media, technology, travel, migration, trade, etc.) and they way they influence  our lives. Instead of letting things just happen, let’s determine what parts we find beneficial, which perhaps we want to avoid, disregard or discard and particularly what parts of our identities and culture(s) we want to protect from these global forces of change.

I tried to put myself in my students position of having to write on this topic and I asked myself, okay, how would you start? I would start with who I am.

I am the product of globalization. My father is from the US, my mother is from Holland, I was born in Barbados, I lived in Latin America till I was 16, I went to American and International schools, I married a Spaniard, I speak 3 languages fluently, I love to travel, I work at an international school… Need I say more?!

When I finished high school I was pretty lost. I had been a nomad for 17 years and was stuck in Holland for university. That’s the way I saw it at first. I didn’t like living there. I didn’t like the people, the cold, gray weather, the roughness… Coming from a conservative society in Guatemala, the Dutch were strange to me. Men had long hair, people wore alternative clothing, were open and easy about things that I wasn’t. But I knew I had to make the best of my time there. So I decided to disregard everything international about me and plunge myself into the Dutch culture. And so I did. I avoided ‘international’ people (or so I thought) and joined a very Dutch student club/sorority. Later on I found out that the girls I had befriended actually ALL had some international connection. So even though I tried to avoid them, I couldn’t.

And that’s when I realized… I can now honestly say ‘I’m from Holland’ without feeling uncomfortable (it took me 10 years) But I can also say ‘I am a global citizen’. I am Dutch, but I will never be completely and purely and only Dutch. Even though I have adopted many Dutch traditions, I love Dutch food, I have started to love the Dutch landscape and architecture, and I even don’t mind the rain or grayness so much, I still feel most comfortable with people who have an international mindset. And what that means, I’ll have to think about some other time and keep you posted.

But to leave you with something more current and not only historical anecdotes, here is an example of how I want to make the ‘right’ decision, even though I am not sure yet what it is. I don’t want to wake up some day and wonder… how could I have let this happen. Let it be a conscious journey of reflection:

I worry about my daughter because she is being exposed to FOUR different languages. What will her mother tongue be? Will she grow up confused, without a native tongue, without a dominant culture that she can relate to? What will this do to her identity? Will she be comfortable as a global nomad or should I decide to go ‘back home’ (where ever that may be, Holland or Spain) at a certain point, so that she, just like me, can get some roots and connection with one culture, country and language? What do you think?