Winter 2004
Acting Local to Think Global
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Since that time, the Department of Education
has helped to establish a university-based network of some 200
federally designated National Resource Centers (NRCs) for education
and research in area studies, foreign languages and international
business. A key goal of this network — which includes five
such NRCs based at the UCLA International Institute — is
outreach to train teachers to advance the study of global regions
in their classrooms.
Postgraduate teacher training is an effective and
practical way to address the shortcomings of teacher preparation
in the field of international studies. These training programs,
ranging from intensive summer workshops to year-round teachers-as-scholars
seminars that address issues critical to Asia, Europe, Africa,
Latin America and the Middle East, take advantage of the inherent
synergies between formative and higher education, especially in
areas where curriculum and coursework intersect — from world
history, international relations and global economics to multiculturalism
as practiced around the world and in cosmopolitan Los Angeles.
While teachers are conveyors of knowledge
about our world, students are the future generation who
must interact competitively in a complex global environment. One
of the best ways to provide younger students with a clear perspective
on international topics is to send advanced graduate students
from various global regions into the K-12 classroom.
At Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, for example,
a doctoral student affiliated with the Center for Near Eastern
Studies recently spoke to sophomores about Ramadan and the tenets
of Islam — a topic that clearly is of significant importance
at this time. Offering insights from her personal experiences
in Afghanistan and the U.S., she was able to demystify Islam and
provoke students to question some of their preconceptions of non-Western
societies and cultures.
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