Teaching: A Global Profession Creating Global Citizens
Summary
In 2013, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards committed to a three-year initiative designed to connect 100,000 teachers around the world in a learning community that will set teaching on the course to become a global profession. Working in partnership with the U.S.-based Teaching Channel (Tch) and Education International (EI), the National Board will incentivize 10,000 of its board-certified teachers to collaborate and work in tandem via video and internet-based communications tools with teachers from around the world in order to create a stronger sense of community, share best practices, and begin building a stronger sense of community and unity in the teaching profession.
Approach
APPROACH
Between the United Nations’ designated World Teachers’ Day on October 5, 2013 and October 5, 2017, the National Board will launch and oversee TGP by inviting 10,000 National Board Certified Teachers to connect electronically with teachers in other countries and establish professional learning communities.
Each professional learning community will consist of ten members who will be organized around shared interests. Education International (EI), which represents thirty million teachers worldwide, will help educators make connections, and the Teaching Channel (Tch) will serve as the virtual host where these communities will live. The National Board will provide participating teachers with a five-hour online tutorial designed to help them establish and lead these communities. Teachers will participate in at least one meeting per month for a year, and each community will establish a measurable goal connected to a specific challenge of teaching and learning in a global society. Moreover, each participating educator will be designated as a National Board Global Teaching Ambassador.
These communities will also be invited to join EI’s Mobilize for Quality Education (MQE), a global initiative designed to support both the Millennium Development and Education for All Goals. This will be launched on World Teachers Day in conjunction with TGP. At the National Board’s Annual Teaching & Learning Conference in Washington DC on March 14-15 2014, EI’s General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen and UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown have confirmed their participation in a plenary session and other workshops are being planned.
True sustainability comes when the essence of activities become manifest in the way people think and operate. The National Board believes that the experience of being part of these communities will become so valuable to teachers and their students that the profession itself will become more global in perspective.
ACTION PLAN
TGP will launch on October 5, 2013 as part of World Teachers’ Day at the U.N. On the night before, the National Board will host a VIP reception with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Gordon Brown, and Fred van Leeuwen. Videos of this event will be posted on the TGP, National Board, EI, and Tch websites to recruit teachers who are interested in participating in the initiative.
Each of the National Board’s regional networks will organize an event that day designed to secure pledges from an initial cohort of 2,500 National Board Certified Teachers who will become Global Teaching Ambassadors by agreeing to connect with nine other teachers worldwide by January 1, 2014. Each community will have a home on Teaching Channel, and Tch will use its on-air and online presence to promote the launch on October 5th and subsequent work connected to the initiative.
The next milestone will be at the National Board’s Teaching & Learning Conference on March 14-15, 2014 in Washington, DC, with expected attendance of 10,000 educators. Fred van Leeuwen and Gordon Brown have already committed to this conference, and the National Board will be extending invitation to additional high-level keynote speakers. Tch also will have a prominent place at the Teaching & Learning Conference, capturing video from key sessions. The National Board will recruit its second cohort of 2,500 Global Teaching Ambassadors following the conference.
This alternating pattern of World Teachers Day in October and the Teaching & Learning Conference in March will provide semi-annual boosts to TGP, with the final cohorts of 2,500 lead teachers recruited by the end of 2015. The National Board commits to organizing 100,000 teachers worldwide who agree to participate for at least one year in their global professional learning communities.
Background
Today’s children must have the skills, knowledge, and habits of mind necessary to participate fully in a society that is increasingly global. Proficiency in traditional academic disciplines is important, but having a global disposition to life may be the most valuable lesson of all. For many children, school is the place where notions of citizenship are cultivated and where leadership skills are first exercised. Because children are far more likely to develop a global orientation if they are guided by teachers who are similarly engaged, teaching must become a global profession.
Throughout much of the 20th Century, teaching was a solitary and isolating endeavor. That pattern is antithetical to the way business and industry now operate, and it does not demonstrate the problem-solving skills necessary to meet the world’s most pressing challenges. Teachers who have achieved National Board Certification – the profession’s highest standards of accomplished practice – are well positioned to lead a transformation of the teaching profession from its long-standing industrial model to one that meets the needs of students who live and work in a global society. To achieve these aims, The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards commits to a three-year initiative designed to move teaching in that direction.
Working in close collaboration with 10,000 U.S. teachers who are National Board Certified and in partnership with Education International (EI) and the U.S.-based Teaching Channel (Tch), the National Board will launch Teaching as a Global Profession (TGP) which will connect 100,000 teachers around the world in a learning community unprecedented in size, purpose, and geographic reach. As a result, teaching will begin to redefine itself as a global profession, and student learning – in the U.S. and elsewhere – will reflect these changes in measurable ways.