Is "Global Education" moving second language learning to a place of greater value and respect in our school communities?

    Let's first talk about what I mean by "global education,"  and then move on to how this may be helping our school communities to value learning World Languages in a way that we have not previoulsly experienced. My definition of "global education" is one that I am adapting to teaching World Languages at the middle level. As I structure this definition to meet the needs of my middle school level students,  I'm using it to define that fact that our world is becoming increasingly more connected via the internet, and that opportunities for international communication exist for us now and will be exceedingly important for our student's future as global citizens and netizens simply by virtue of the opportunities that are now available with the internet.  I had a conversation today with a sixth grade Spanish class that I may not have had with them five years ago. So much has changed with technology in the past few years that is leading us into greater communication access to the rest of the world, drawing us closer, in a staggeringly instantaneous fashion, by the way. I want to help them to understand that technology and internet is a pathway to understanding more about other cultures, and languages. I want them to understand that their future may be dependent on their ability to connect with other countries based on their knowledge of the country's culture and/or language.
      For years I have opened discussion and presented lessons about how important learning a World Language is, and for years I get the same response. "It's great to know Spanish for traveling." "Oh yes, yes, Johnny.....it most certainly is." "So, I do hope you remember how to order a hamburger and a coke when you go to Cancún on vacation."  I then go into my diatribe about all the other reasons for the importance of  learning a second language that may be far more important than a spring break excursion to México.
     Now,  I'm thinking......... they just might listen to us, value us, and respect us a little more if we World Language teachers start focusing on the potential that technology and the internet has to offer for student's language learning, and that this learning to make real world connections with other cultures and languages, will be directly linked to: our nation's economic future...... it's staus as a world power,  and...... future student employment opportunity,  just to name a few.

Let's warm up our curriculum workout with a good assessment stretch, good... now take a deep breath, and let it out!

   I loved the realism about the problem of 21st century public education that Heidi Hayes Jacobs presents in the initial chapters of her book Curriculum 21, Essential Education for a Changing World. Hayes Jacobs addresses real problems and gives real workable answers and solutions. Hayes Jacobs identifies one issue of curriculum change and development as being three pronged, and clearly outlines an avenue for change which has proved to be successful. Hayes Jacobs gives us a starting point for change: ... assessments. She describes that beginning first with modifying our assessments will initiate change for curriculum content and finally affect an upgrade for learner's skillls and proficiencies. I think I can deal with this. I can see that beginning with assessment will create a powerful impetus that will in  turn modify both content and proficiency for students. I will make an analogy for Hayes Jacob's proposal to begin modifications with assessment, to the proper beginning...... for a workout.  We all know that warming up our muscles with stretching and other aerobic exercise will help us to better perform our core workout. We will have better blood flow, hasten  oxygen to the muscles,etc. I think we can apply this to Jacob's idea of starting to enact change in our curricula by starting with modifying our assessments.   

Is this a definition of curriculum, or is it a mission statement?

Here goes, curriculum: an engaging, individualized program of learning designed for literacy as well as positive growth development that allows the learner to function optimally and considerately as a global citizen of the world.

Creating curriculum has been a solitary endeavor. Isn't it time for a change?

     Writing and developing curriculum for instructing World Language at the middle level here in Maine has been a solitary endeavor for the most part. A few years have seen me working with another World Language teacher to plan our French/Spanish classroom curriculum for grade 6-8. There were also a few years where our curriculum was developed to be part of a library research class. Other than the two year integration with a library research class, I have been on my own to generate curriculum for my subject area’s grade level needs. From time to time, I would communicate with the high school teachers who would be accepting my 8th grades students to see “where students were” on our somewhat  flexible continuum of transitional curriculum for the 8th grade student entering a high school Spanish 1 or 2 level class. My curriculum has been loosely based on the text supplement for the subject.  
   I can recount similar experiences with curriculum writing and development in Massachusetts, where curriculum writing was mainly text based for the high school level, and for part of the middle level. Exploratory format for the lower middle level grade levels was thematically generated. A highlight of preparing curriculum in Massachusetts was that we were actually paid to do so, a fun little motivating perk!  So, despite this short lived additional income, most of my experience with development and has been a solitary, confusing and ever changing task that is dictated by the annual, and once again, ever changing needs of the schedule as is seen through the eyes of the powers that be. In my district, the school board makes decisions about which subjects will be added/ deleted to our grade level programs. These dictates are then passed to the superintendent, and finally to the administration of the different schools, who then implement the dictates. The form of the programs and their various curricula is now subject to budgeting, time constraints, and several other factors which greatly affect learning in the classroom and beyond. Grade level instructors are rarely, to never asked for input/consultation about what, how, when, where, and in which form instruction will take place in my school district.
   Our school has recently been involved with a program called RISC, the reinventing schools coalition, which is helping us to transform our school into a school which is driven by performance based assessment and close alignment to state and national standards. On top of those changes to which instructors are required to show progress in implementation, my subject area has recently undergone some drastic changes. Briefly describing this scenario,  takes us to four years ago when we  began to initiate a k-8 Spanish language program. This has posed and imposed some concern for my fellow World Language teachers and I as we struggle to meet the needs of aligning k-4 curriculum with middle level and then also to accommodate for student transition into the high school levels, as well as high student volume in our heterogeneous classrooms.  I think it is important to add that as I began a graduate program in middle level education a few years ago, I was so excited about the possibilities for second language student learning in an integrated format. It has been frustrating to see a lack of commitment to progress in that area. A trend that we never saw come to fruition, or really even germinate in our middle school. Now, we are adopting a standards based program and we have never even mastered the integrated approach to learning! How can this be possible???