NSBA President: Teaching global awareness is a key role for public schools
By Barbara Bolas
The community where I grew up, in rural western New York, had many migrant farm workers and struggled with providing an equal education to all students. The school board faced many of the same challenges you are facing.
Just as it was back then, it is the school board, educators, and taxpayers who are making the dream of an equal education possible.
Today, we’re facing a new challenge -- to prepare our children to be future leaders in this ever-changing global society. It’s not just about making sure every child is educated. It’s also about making sure that we adequately prepare them to enter a work force that is constantly being molded and changed by the world around us.
It can be overwhelming to think about all the pressures facing us today -- from our local communities all the way up to the national and international levels.
But seen from a different perspective, we might be able to use these pressures to help us grow as individuals, and in turn, become more effective leaders and collaborators.
Borders are not boundaries like they once were.
An incident that happened to me while living abroad helped put me on the path to becoming an activist parent, school board member, and ultimately, the president of NSBA.
I was living in Venezuela, when one day, while observing street life from my fifth-floor apartment, I saw young students marching down the street carrying signs in peaceful protest.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the Guardia Nacional soldiers as they swooped down and encircled the students. Some young people were able to escape. Others were captured and forcibly thrown into a truck and taken away to be incarcerated.
The Puerto Ordaz community was somber that day as word spread that the students’ peaceful march was met by violent resistance by the authorities for merely demonstrating in favor of a better education.
Despite our differences in backgrounds, languages, and cultures, those of us who witnessed the violence that day formed a strong bond.
Through our many discussions, I came to better appreciate the strong public education I had received in the United States -- and especially our unique form of democracy.
It was more than the formal teaching I received, which included high-level math, science, and foreign language instruction. The value of the education I received in public schools had more to do with learning about the need to respect other human beings and that we are all equal and have the right to the same educational opportunities.
While I was away from the United States for several years, I increasingly yearned to return to my country, where I felt safe under a democratic system, where laws, and not men, ruled and where people had the right to peaceful assembly. I no longer took for granted the freedoms I was naturally provided as an American citizen.
Upon my return to the United States, and while starting a family, I found myself thinking more and more about my earlier experiences and asking myself how people can become aware of what is happening elsewhere in the world.
The answer was public education. This led to my re-engagement with and renewed appreciation for the American public education system.
Good schools unite our communities. Good schools promote community growth and vitality. And they attract new residents and businesses.
In our schools, students learn about environmental responsibilities, ways to promote peace and harmony, and ways to maintain the United States’ partnership with countries around the world. Public education challenges students to become aware of the world around them.
A globe made by students at my local high school to celebrate International Education Week symbolizes this objective.
The students and teachers who made “Globey” see the world not as something to be frightened of, but as something to be embraced. We need to teach our students to face our world with enthusiasm and passion.
Clearly, public education is the key to preparing our future citizens in the 21st century and beyond.
We all know that a single test score does not make the student. Our students need a well-balanced curriculum beyond reading, math, and science that also includes literature, athletics, and the arts.
A good public education might be the key to securing a Nobel Prize; a career in medicine, the arts, or teaching; an Academy Award; a position in the Peace Corps, the Supreme Court, or political office; or some day, a chance to travel to Mars.
We are partners in this great institution called public education. Your ongoing support and ideas are critical to enabling us to continue to make improvements in the public education system for the benefit of all our students -- and ultimately, to sustain our country’s free and democratic society.
Preparing our students to successfully enter an increasingly competitive global society is a significant challenge.
At the same time we have to deal with schools badly in need of repair, students who come to school with physical or mental challenges, teachers lacking the proper equipment and facilities they need, and many other issues.
We all know and appreciate this dilemma. We all need to do our jobs as education leaders for the good of all of our children and this great nation, as we successfully and enthusiastically navigate our way within this rapidly changing global society.
Reproduced with permission from School Board News. Copyright © 2008, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789.