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Image courtesy of www.du.edu/issa/.

It was windy, all right: The icy gusts tearing across Lake Michigan threatened to hijack my breath and use it for fuel on the short journey into the city. And I learned of the storied political ‘hot-air’ during excursions to Chicago’s famous landmarks.

In addition to these blustery mainstays of the Midwestern Capital, there were some new winds of change stirring at a hotel in the small suburb of Itasca, Illinois this past weekend. At the 7th annual International Studies Schools Association conference, visionary educators, administrators, university researchers, non-profit organizations, and others met to share best practices and coordinate efforts to internationalize curricula and schools. My Wonderful World, along with National Geographic Education’s Geography Action! program, participated as an exhibitor and presenter to the gathering of more than 300 attendants.

It was a truly inspirational event. Andy Revkin and Jimmie Briggs, both New York-based journalists, delivered keynote addresses on the climate crisis and the tragedy of child soldiers. Reformers, with titles like “Director of Global Studies,” presented on a broad range of international education topics, from integration of technology and new media techniques to theoretical application to classroom praxis, with taglines like “social networking for global understanding;” “complexity, adaptive change, and globalizing education;” and “teaching about genocide.”

As a campaign to “give kids the power of global knowledge,” it was focus on the issues that got My Wonderful World most excited about the conference. Geography is, of course, a vital piece of any international studies curriculum, and even makes sense as an overarching contextual framework for such a curriculum. In many ways, “globalizing” the curriculum is synonymous with infusing geography and the geographic perspective into the teaching of traditional and new subject areas. The geographic lens enriches all subjects, including history, earth science, economics and civics. And all the other “globalize your school” initiatives, including international classroom connections, study abroad and exchanges programs, and foreign language instruction, are grounded within and complementary to a comprehensive geography curriculum.

We left the ISSA conference with a new set of like-minded friends, an affirmed sense of empowerment, and a reenergized dedication to our mission. If you met us at the conference, please drop us a line and tell us about your favorite parts of the event. Also, look for me to feature some of the programs I encountered on upcoming installments of the blog!

Sarah for My Wonderful World

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Comments

[Sarah]

Thanks! Glad you enjoy it.

[Disouza]

Great blog..!