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I n c i t e /I ns i ght
M em b er’ s Corn er
S p r i n g 201 8
How One High School Theatre Course Incorporates Components of
Global Education By Jo Beth Gonzalez
L
ast summer, I was selected to be a part of the U.S. State
Department’s 2018 Teachers for Global Classrooms (TGC)
program (recently changed to Fulbright Teachers for Global
Classrooms). The goal of the program is to give teachers resources and
training to help students develop global competence. The year-long
TGC program includes four stages: an intensive 11-week online course
rich with resources and peer communication, a weekend symposium in
Washington D.C., a two-three week field experience to another country
that includes observation and partner-teaching, and a capstone
project in the form of a website that shares insights and resources with
colleagues.
In my coursework, I learned that globalizing one’s classroom doesn’t
require an overhaul of scope and sequence; rather, teachers can pivot
select aspects of class curriculum toward structured activities and
projects designed to strengthen global competence. For a dozen years,
I’ve taught a class I designed called Social Issues Theatre; after taking the
on-line TGC course and participating in the symposium, I realize the class
integrates the four major components of globalized learning.
As defined by the Asia Society, a Global non-profit organization that
bridges Asia and the West through arts, education, policy and business
outreach, Global Education consists of four categories: 1) Investigate the
World, 2) Recognize Perspective, 3) Communicate Ideas, and 4) Take
Action. Below, I describe how one Social Issues Theatre class gained skills
toward global competence by participating in each of the four steps.
The semester-long Social Issues Theatre class has three parts: A) select
and research a topic students agree is important to them and their
peers; B) collectively devise a scene addressing the topic that stops
rather than ends; C) lead a workshop on the topic for peers that includes
performance of and interaction with the scene.
A devised scene invites peers to suggest strategies that can extract the
protagonist from a potentially dangerous or seriously compromising
situation. For context, the devised scene created by this Social Issues
Theatre class centered on two 15-year old teens, Rhonda and Avery,
who could represent students at our high school. Rhonda is trafficked by
a guy she thinks is her boyfriend. The scene stops when Avery and her
12-year-old sister Lily are about to be trapped as well.
INVESTIGATE THE WORLD
One important objective of Global Education is to recognize that what
happens at the local level impacts, and is impacted by, what happens
at the global level, and vice versa. The Asia Society states that assessing
global and local significance requires students to think on several
levels at once. The 3Ys routine (below) invites learners to move across
personal, local and global spheres. In doing so they learn to weigh the
topic’s relevance and unearth connections across different geographical
spheres. This routine encourages students to develop intrinsic motivation
to investigate a topic by uncovering the significance of such topics in
multiple contexts.
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M e m be r ’s C o r n e r
In c it e / In sig h t
The 3 Ys
1.
Why might this [topic, question] matter to me?
Students practiced Routine 1 by selecting the topic of human sex trafficking of
minors after one of the students in that particular class explained that her sister
recently had been extracted from the system.
2.
Why might it matter to people around me [family, friends, city, nation]?
Students practiced Routine 2 by conducting research to Investigate the World.
Northwest Ohio, students discovered, provides easy access for traffickers to move
victims frequently due to the proximity of international waters (Lake Erie and the
Atlantic Ocean) and airport (Detroit Metropolitan), a major highway corridor (I-
75) running north/south peppered with truck stops, and Amtrack trains that link New
York in the east through Chicago to Denver in the west. Students gained insight into
the problem locally from a county sheriff deputy who informed them, for example,
that prostitution takes place in every single hotel in our county. I brought back
to class much information about the issue at the state and national levels after
attending a conference on the topic at the University of Toledo.
3.
Why might it matter to the world?
Students practiced Routine 3 by researching the problem on a global level. This
included reading excerpts from the books Half the Sky and Not For Sale and
watching the movie Sold and the documentary Call and Response. They learned to
define human trafficking a modern-day slavery for both sex and labor and that it is
the second largest crime in the world next to drugs.
RECOGNIZE PERSPECTIVE.
Students had an opportunity to perform their scene for a cohort of IREX-
sponsored TEA fellows based at Bowling Green State University who represented
20 different countries, including Ghana, India, and Columbia. In the talk-back that
followed, students learned that human trafficking exists in every country these
fellows represented; they were surprised when the fellows commented after
the performance that they hadn’t realized that human trafficking is a complex,
unexposed problem in the United States as well, and that it exits in most of our own
back yards.
COMMUNICATE IDEAS.
A portion of the workshop is reserved for students to provide information for
their peers on various aspects of the problem. Students glean material from the
research they’ve conducted during the first third of the semester. This information
is presented in a variety of ways. Students often make standard power point
presentations. They also communicate ideas by writing satire scenes. Satire is a
genre that adolescents in particular understand, enjoy, and respond to. One of
these was a satirical game show in which victims were released from indenture
each time company owners answered questions incorrectly relating to their
business and workers.
Spring 2 018