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You
are here: Inspiring Student Learning with the Real World
by Wendy Church
Student achievement is closely linked to classroom engagement. This is not rocket science; we all tend to learn better when we're interested and engaged. What might surprise some people is that middle and high school students don't need sports or media stars, video game lessons or the like to get interested in their subjects. Students can be and are galvanized by learning that is relevant to their world-- the whole world, including outside of their community.
Facing the Future: People and the Planet is a nonprofit educational organization that brings global issues, literacy and critical thinking to middle and high school students. We develop standards-based global issues curricula, teacher professional development workshops, and school and district-wide consulting for schools and districts around the country and the world.
Over the last two years we have conducted a special program in Washington State where we partnered with select "Lead Teachers" who embed global issues into their classrooms (urban and rural, private and public, middle and high schools). At the end of this program these teachers and their students (over 1000) participated in assessing the impact of integrating global issues into their subjects, which included Language Arts, Social Studies, History, Science, Humanities, World Geography, Pacific NW History, Biology, Environmental Science, Physical Science, Global Studies, Business Education, and ESL Social Studies. Among other things, the teachers told us that after completing the global issues units they noted
· Significant increases in student engagement (100%)
· Students taking action to solve problems and get involved in their own communities (84%)
· 'Difficult-to-reach' students more engaged than with standard curriculum (68%)
· Improved reading and writing skills (100%)The impact goes beyond the numbers. We've seen from hundreds of student essays that youth see the world around them and desperately want to feel involved, and be knowledgeable. At a May 2005 event we invited one of our 'Lead Teachers', Wendy Ewbank, and two of her students to share with us their experiences and thoughts around global issues. Wendy Ewbank is a teacher at Seattle Girls School, and Zoe Kahn is one of her students. Wendy gives inspiring and thoughtful insight into what it's like to be a teacher in today's climate of testing and standards, and Zoe, her student, provided a really astounding look into the mind of an intelligent and enlightened 12-year-old. Below are excerpts from both of their presentations.
Wendy Ewbank
"First, I thought I'd tell you a little bit about myself, and why I started teaching in the first place. I was a video producer in Washington, DC, and I was increasingly frustrated with never getting to see the audience. Living in the nation's capital – which is plagued by homelessness and all sorts of inequalities – I was concerned about social problems and - as dorky as it sounds – I wanted to make a real difference. I was sitting in an isolated editing room or behind a computer, and interacting only with people who already agreed with me, so it was pretty limiting.After moving to Seattle, where I knew not a soul and thought I could re-invent myself, I produced my last video, and it was on service learning. I documented what three schools were doing to address real problems in the community. All I could think was, "I'd rather be on that side of the camera."
And for the past 13 years, I've never regretted being on this side.
My first teaching job was a middle school social studies position – in a multi-age, nongraded school that didn't use textbooks or adhere to the state's prescribed scope and sequence. To prepare, I spent a weekend at Mount Rainier, where I sat in the evening with a headlamp on to plan the year. I asked myself what middle school students would really need to know – what issues would confront them in their lives requiring a certain set of skills and dispositions and knowledge. I came up with 3 themes: Immigration, human rights and overpopulation.
Even though I was teaching U.S. history, these became the 3 themes I hung my curriculum on. Every year since, I do the same thing (right down to imagining my yearlong plan with the aid of a headlamp…I do change locations.) I've incorporated additional themes over the years: resource distribution, nationalism, social and environmental justice, individual liberty versus the common good. These continue to drive much of what I do in the classroom. And Facing the Future really validates the content and skills I value.
So how do people like me survive in a climate of increased standardization and testing across the country? And how will organizations like this continue to thrive? I refuse to view this as an either/or tension. Do I ignore the state frameworks and teach what I value? Or Do I conform to what colleagues are doing? It is possible – even advantageous – to do both.
This just means looking at history, geography, civics and economics through a thematic lens. That lens could be human rights, sustainability, liberty, security, our ecological footprint, equal protection under the law. This approach makes more sense to kids. It helps them contextualize facts, understand relationships, draw conclusions, and apply concepts to a new situation. This type of teaching is exactly what Facing the Future reinforces. The focus is not on coverage of a bunch of discrete facts; it is rather to think critically, to collaborate, to assume others' perspectives, to address real problems and make informed policy decisions. These are the skills they're going to need to be informed, fair-minded participants in a democratic society.
And that has never been more important than today. I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say we need to do a better job in this country fostering critical thinkers and tolerant decision makers. We can't expect competent citizens to materialize out of thin air; we've got to educate them for it! The research tells us that bringing controversial issues into the classroom increases tolerance among youth. Yet many teachers are hesitant, because they fear community reactions. Fear can polarize us. If we let it, fear can cause us to create bland curriculum, to tolerate sensationalist newscasts, and accept meaningless political solutions.
Every year, I ask students to explain what they would do if a kitchen faucet was left on, and water was spilling over onto the floor. They sensibly point out that they would first turn off the faucet. My point with this analogy is that in today's society we typically mop up the floor instead of addressing the faucet of our problems.
What I most love about Facing the Future is that the organization is not afraid to confront controversial issues and to take us to the faucet of our problems. And just as importantly, after addressing harsh realities, the curriculum doesn't stop there – it encourages students to imagine solutions. Like a lot of other people doing good social studies, I just try to bring the world into the classroom. And Facing the Future has been a great resource to do that. I've used Facing the Future lessons for several years, and now teach a class at the UW on social studies methods for teachers.
In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his letter form a Birmingham jail, wrote, "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects us all indirectly." I believe the mission of every one of us here is to make that mutual existence as positive as possible.
It's about time you stop taking my word for it and hear from a young lady who can make this real for you better than I can. She understands all this at age 12… when I was busy playing Truth or Dare and watching the Brady Bunch. (And now you'll see why I decided to speak before them! I did not want to follow their act!)
Zoe is living proof that youth are far more often part of the solution than the
problem, and that we need to listen to what they have to say, and take them seriously."Zoe Kahn:
"Hi. My name is Zoe Kahn and I'm one of Wendy Ewbank's 7th grade students at Seattle Girls' School.All through Wendy's teaching, I've learned to question others and my own information, think critically, and research deeper about issues I feel passionate about.
At Seattle Girls' School we have 3 terms, each of which emphasizes a different area. Each term, I ended up with a different idea of what I wanted to do for a career. For example, in 6th grade we came up with an invention and made of model of it. At that time, I wanted to go to MIT and become an inventor. The 2nd term we focused on the human body. I researched Phantom Limb Syndrome. And then decided I wanted to study this phenomena and become a neuroscientist. The same excitement has been with me all this year as well. When we learned about communities and other countries in the world, I wanted to become a political scientist specializing in cultural practices and religions.
This term, for one project we are doing is to identify and help solve a pressing issue in the local Seattle community which we feel passionately about.
While narrowing down what issue to work on, I decided that I wanted an issue which wasn't addressed as much or clearly as many other issues such as homelessness which is a very important issue but one which we see on the streets every day. So, I chose Urban Sprawl. As Leigh Sims from the Northwest Environment Watch said when I recently interviewed her. Quote: "Sprawl is a kind of development with low density and there [aren't] many jobs or supermarkets and things where people can walk and ride their bike to, close to where people live." End of quote. Since there aren't jobs, and supermarkets close by houses, residents must drive to these places every day. Urban Sprawl contributes to many problems: it pollutes the air, creates traffic, kills species, takes away farm land, and even contributes to obesity (people drive more and walk less). For my "plan of action" to minimize Urban Sprawl, I am going to do hands-on activities with preschool children. Now you may think that is a very young age to be talking about sprawl. However, much of a person's core beliefs are based from such an age. This however, is just a start. I don't want just preschool children learning about sprawl but, rather every age group, including adults who can put in place organizations and programs to minimize Urban Sprawl.
I imagine you are all here because you care about issues like overpopulation, sprawl, resource use, and environmental protections. I agree with you that these are important issues for students to learn about.
I hope Facing the Future continues to do all the important work it's doing in creating curriculum which integrates critical thinking and community action. Thank you."
Wendy Church, Ph.D. 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 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
©September 2005 New Horizons for Learning
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