The first and most important thing I learned in this chat was that Americans are often quite guilty of being very egocentric. Many Americans, including myself, have a ridiculous view of not seeing the importance of learning other languages, but hypocritically expect immigrants to learn English when they come to the States. In this global education webinar conducted by Terry Smith, I learned about programs and projects where teachers from across the globe are paired up collaborate and share their classrooms with each other and the students. Not only does this connect students with the world outside of America, but it also gives the rest of the world insight into your classroom. I can see myself making a much bigger impact in student lives if somehow I can inspire more teachers, or if they inspire me. Connecting my future classrooms to the world does this in an amazing way. Terry Smith gave just a several examples of teachers around the globe (Australia, Taiwan, Great Britain, India and more!) and gave out their contact information for new teachers like me to connect with them. Moving forward, I definitely plan on engaging with these amazing educators and learning more on how I can better connect my students to the outside world so that they don’t develop the Americanized view of the world that I did.
