Thursday, April 18, 2013

Dreams From a Traveling Life

I have traveled much and often throughout my life, and I consider these journeys to be the most important aspect of my education. Traveling has informed my dreams, my goals, my philosophy, and of course my profession. “Dreaming” may seem like the word of a fool, to be discounted in the hard, cold world of reality, but the fact is, nothing of consequence is ever accomplished unless someone has dreamt about it first. As Eleanor Roosevelt once remarked,  “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” As an educator, I want to “awake” and nurture the dreams of my students. I am living one of my dreams right now, and that is to travel with a group of remarkable educators to learn as much as I can about education and life in a place I have never visited before – India. As a result I have been dreaming a waking dream about India, reading and viewing as much as I can, delving into history, news, and current events, attending the Holi Festival here in South Florida, as well as avidly reading posts on Facebook by some of my fellow traveling educators from Teachers for GlobalClassrooms. I also made a friend of a school librarian who works in a rural school outside of Mumbai.

One of the books I have been reading, 
India, by Stanley Wolpert, gives a great overview on the history of India from the earliest times, of recent political events, different aspects of Indian culture from its myriad religious and ethnic groups, including art, dance, music, and literature. Since I am a fan of video and film, I've also been watching contemporary Indian movies such as Water by Deepa Mehta and Udaan by Vikramaditya Motwane. I know books and movies alone can’t prepare anyone for the impact that awaits travelers, but they definitely help me to dream and imagine. With action driving my dreams and vice versa, what I would like to convey to my students and peers is that the world is at our doorstep, often knocking with more or less urgency at our door. We need to respond, for our own survival as much as anyone else’s. The problems we face: overcorwding, limited resources, pollution, climate change, hunger, and global access to education are universal, and we would do well to look at each other’s methods of dealing with these issues, collaborating to find the best solutions in each region. 

This concept is too often ignored as we focus on making students pick the “right answer” on standardized tests, mistakenly thinking that being able to complete multiple choice or even “packaged “ short answers will somehow prepare them for a world that requires innovation and multiple perspectives in order to survive. It’s no longer enough to understand and speak and single language, just as it is absurd to insist upon a single way of thinking and being, when what can save our planet is the very diversity that we tend to suppress by the move towards absolute standardization. Of course educational standards must be met, but they should be met with a multiplicity of methods, means, and minds. Global education, as outlined by the Asia Society's Partnership for Global Learning, Oxfam, and a growing number of organizations who realize that “globalization” is not just about multi-national corporate interests, is aligned with diverse perspectives. Leaving the future up to powerful for-profit-only corporations means to abdicate our rights as global citizens. To become global citizens, and lead our students to develop global competencies, we need to leave aside assumptions, and seek to understand the differences and commonalities that exist between our cultures and those that are not ours.


Sharing traditions is one way to begin to know other people. At the Holi Phagwah Festival in Brian Piccolo Park in Fort Lauderdale, I learned that Holi is a celebration of good over evil, and the colors represent the universal joy that comes out of solving a horrific problem: in this case, an arrogant demon who could not be killed but who tried his best to kill his own son, and was defeated by the purity and good will of that very son. Sort of the way our worst intentions can be defeated by our better selves. The festival is a moment when barriers are lowered and people of all kinds come together. Alternatively, the colored powder that people throw all over each other represents the vibrant colors of spring. (I'm a long way from really understanding, but that's kind of the gist of it).

Just celebrating each other's cultures in the cultural mesh that makes up South Florida is a way for students to reach out to the world around them.



As I write on this blog, I will be adding more resources that indicate how to incorporate global perspectives into existing curriculum. I can't wait to visit India and learn how educators and students there view education and learning.
In the meantime, I'll keep listening to Indian music as I dream...