Bringing the World Home
By Stacia Harris, Assistant Director of Communications, in an interview with Laura
Mitchell, Art Teacher and 2015 North Buncombe District Teacher of the Year
Laura Mitchell, North Buncombe Middle School Art
Teacher, will be joining 25 other North Carolina
educators on a study tour to South Africa in June.
Mitchell will visit schools in Durban, Cape Town,
and Johannesburg as well as exploring historic sites
and national parks. The goal is to not just bring
back more of a global understanding for students,
but to create global partnerships with the schools
in South Africa.
The BCS Advantage Magazine spoke with Ms. Mitchell
about what this trip means for her and her students.
equipped to get along with others and become
global leaders within our own community and
throughout the world.”
Why did you want to be a part of this South
Africa trip?
“Every time I travel to a new country I gain more
knowledge about the world, and I’m changed in
some way. When I heard about the opportunity
to travel to South Africa, I knew it would be a
good contrast to my trip to Kenya in 2014. Before
that, in 2000, I was able to be a part of a similar
trip with North Carolina educators and traveled
to Japan. I have stayed in touch with some of the
teachers I traveled with as well as the Japanese
teachers I visited.” How do you turn these global experiences into
lessons for your students?
“As an art educator I tell my students that art is
a universal language and that through learning
visual literacy they will be better at anything they
go forth into when they graduate. Everything the
students learn in each subject links to another. I
can’t teach art without math, literacy, science, and
social studies. It is all of this. Global education is
all of this, too. Through blogging, snail mail, and
email my students will exchange ideas, artwork,
and writing. They will have a better idea of what
it might be to walk around Cape Town as a 13-year-
old South African, and the students in South Africa
will have a better idea of what it is really like
to be a 13-year-old South African student from
Weaverville, NC. It is the everyday things that help
us connect so the students can work together with
students around the world to connect and discuss
bigger issues like world peace, water quality,
education equity, fair trade, and the environment.”
What does Global Education mean to you?
“Global Education is more than just creating
intercultural understanding. It is creating unity.
By opening my students to the wider world and
helping them to see that our fellow humans around
the globe are a part of our community, I am giving
them the tools to see themselves as global citizens.
By having more understanding and then coupling
that understanding with authentic experiences of
interacting with students from other countries,
our students in Buncombe County will be better How have you seen your students transformed
by learning about the world?
“I have seen my students make connections between
subjects and come into my room and tell me how
it relates to what they are learning in English
Language Arts or something they discussed in
science or social studies. I also have seen their
eyes light up and walls come down. We recently
got a new student from the Dominican Republic.
My students have embraced him and are curious to
know about where he came from. I truly believe
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