The Three C's of Global Education

Our high school has a focus on global education as evidenced by the globe centered on our school crest. It is absolutely imperative that schools embrace the need for our students to recognize their place in the world and the impact that hard-working students in China, India, and Brazil will have on their future.

As a high school senior in the eighties, I had only to worry about competing with my in-county peers if I had chosen to go right to work in the textile mills as so many did in the mountains of North Carolina. In-state rivals were a concern when considering a spot in the freshmen class of one of our major universities. The only international concern that was ever spoken of, beyond worries over the potential spread of communism, was of the hungry children in Africa who were held up as a way to convince me to clean my plate at dinner.

Those days are no more. Our students have to be very aware of all of the players in our interconnected world. Their peers around the globe directly compete with them for lucrative positions that are geographically indifferent as long as the employee has the necessary skills and a reliable connection to the Internet. They compete for limited spots in the freshmen classes of the best universities. Competition is the first "C." for our students to be successful they must be fully prepared to compete against their international counterparts.

If we only create a class of competitors, they will be sorely prepared to compete. Our students must be able to collaborate with others regardless of cultural differences. As businesses recruit talent around the world, our students must be able to demonstrate an ability to work on multicultural teams. Collaboration is an equally important "C."

Competition and collaboration hinge on the third "C," Communication. Students need to be able to communicate using 21st century tools, leveraging social media and Web 2.0 tools to share their messages in a variety of mediums. An understanding of the power of a well-crafted message between a skilled sender and receiver will allow them to become a vital cog in industries that span the globe, yet depend on well-timed communication between teammates to keep the work going forward.

My own kindergarten teacher could not have imagined the world I live in, the tools I routinely use, or the on-demand availability of information we have at our fingertips. I would be just as unsuccessful if I tried to guess at the world waiting for our students. Just as she knew that regardless of my circumstances, I would need the skills she taught, we know that our student's future success depends on their ability to Compete, Collaborate, and Communicate.

The Great Communicator on Vision

Just about every school has a Vision and Mission Statement posted somewhere. For some schools these are guiding principles that guide the schools progress. In other schools, they are long-forgotten statements that exist to fulfill a reporting requirement and are only referenced when called for in a new report. Sometimes the school's vision and mission are "real," that is they represent the actual beliefs of the stakeholders. In others, they are mired in cliches and educational jargon, ripe with pretty words, yet bereft of any emotional attachment.

Recently I had the opportunity to address a room full of aspiring principals in our county's leadership program. I had been asked to discuss the concept of vision. I began by sharing from the new NC Standards for School Executives, specifically the first standard, "Strategic Leadership." It states, "School executives will create conditions that result in strategically re-imaging the school’s vision, mission, and goals in the 21st century. Understanding that schools ideally prepare students for an unseen but not altogether unpredictable future, the leader creates a climate of inquiry that challenges the school community to continually re-purpose itself by building on its core values and beliefs about its preferred future and then developing a pathway to reach it."

Successful schools have living visions that they continually re-visit to ensure that they are making strides towards the future they have envisioned. Perhaps one of the best examples of this being done comes from the Great Communicator, President Ronald Reagan.

In 1974, then Governor Ronald Reagan shared that from the “deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said, “We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us,”” He cast his vision and began sharing with the American people how he foresaw the country. In 1984, accepting again the Republican nomination for President, he again proclaimed America as a city upon a hill. This return or revisit to his vision kept him true to the path he had dreamed of. As a President he saw democracy grow around the world even as paragons of communism began to crumble.

In 1988, as he was leaving office he said, “I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.”

Throughout his political career his vision remained constant. What, then, is the lesson for leaders? I believe that we must continually re-visit our vision, mission, and core-values. We must critically evaluate what we find to ensure they still communicate our goals. We must use them as a rubric upon which to assess our progress. In maintaining a constancy of purpose, we instill confidence in those we serve. Our work may very well become a city on the hill, drawing in students seeking a pathway to their futures.