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You
are here: Contextual Learning and the World Classroom
by Wendy Church
The national emphasis in K-12 education right now, as manifest in the No Child Left Behind Act, is on core subjects: reading, writing, math and science. Many educators bemoan this, saying that it focuses too much on testing and standards and not enough on learning.
Real learning takes place when students are engaged in their subject, and this is why most educators know that we all learn better in context. I watched students labeled as 'low achievers' in my own math class perform brilliantly when we applied their math lessons to subjects they cared about. Free-throw percentages in basketball and batting averages in baseball engaged students in fractions; birdies in golf illuminated negative numbers.
An obvious solution is to teach required core subjects in a context that matters to students. Many teachers already do this, and all over the country entire schools have moved in this direction. In our work at Facing the Future we have found that global issues provide a particularly compelling context for students. Given the increasingly interconnected nature of the global community it makes sense for students to be prepared to not only read and write, but also to be informed global citizens.
Facing the Future: People and the Planet (http://www.facingthefuture.org) is a nonprofit educational organization that brings global issues literacy and critical thinking to middle and high school students. We develop activity-based global issues curricula that meet state and national standards, teacher professional development workshops, and school and district-wide consulting for schools and districts around the country and the world. Currently our materials are in use in 48 U.S. states and 36 countries; in 2005 over 3,000 educators integrated our programming into their classrooms.
Recently we partnered with a number of teachers who helped us develop a robust set of activity-based lessons that help educators teach core subjects using a global issues context. These lessons are contained in "Engaging Students through Global Issues: Activity-Based Lessons and Action Projects", an activity-based lesson book for middle and high school teachers. The standards-aligned, step-by-step lesson plans are coded for various subjects, and designed to help students understand complex global issues and sustainable solutions. Topics include global sustainability, refugee issues, biodiversity, media literacy, global health, governance and taxes, microcredit, and conflict mediation. All of the lessons were field tested by teachers and students, and each includes ties to community action projects (service learning). Most of these lessons are available for free download by going to http://www.facingthefuture.org and clicking on "Download Facing the Future Curriculum."
We've seen many teachers and entire schools have great success integrating global issues as a contextual framework throughout their grade and subject areas. Because of this we're optimistic that regardless of the fate of standardized testing and the No Child Left Behind Act, students can be engaged in their coursework, achieve in the classroom and at the same time become globally literate citizens.
Dr. Wendy Church is the Executive Director for Facing the Future: People and the Planet. She is co-author of two textbooks, "It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions", and "Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions: Population, Poverty, Consumption, Conflict, and the Environment." Both of these texts can be previewed online at http://www.facingthefuture.org. Wendy has worked, lived and traveled extensively in Europe, Japan, and the Middle East, and has worked in both non-profit organizations and for-profit business. Wendy holds a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Washington, a Masters of Management from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, and a Ph.D. in BioResource Engineering from Oregon State University.
Wendy Church, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Facing the Future: People and the Planet
811 First Ave., Suite 454
Seattle, WA 98104
(phone) 206-264-1503 (fax) 206-264-1506
wendy@facingthefuture.org
©July 2006 New Horizons for Learning
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