how can a teacher change the world essay

8 Ways teachers change the world

Teachers – you are some of the most influential people in the world. why .

• Teachers impact the lives of thousands of students! Did you know? The average teacher impacts 3,000+ students during her career! 
• Teachers are directly responsible for academic success of their pupils. Teachers, more than any other part of the education system, have the largest influence on their students’ success. 
• Teachers inspire young people to overcome obstacles. Many children face obstacles of varying kinds. Sometimes they struggle with difficult family environments. Maybe they are victims of poverty. Maybe they wrestle with a learning disability. Whatever the obstacle, teachers can help them. According to one study, 54% of students said they received help from their teachers during a difficult time. 
• Teachers teach students how to learn. Students learn much more than the alphabet and multiplication charts from their teachers. One study involving 570,000 pupils found that teachers who focused on improving their pupils’ motivation and ability to adapt to new environments saw huge benefits. Those pupils were more likely to graduate upper level school than their peers. They also were less likely to face suspensions or delays in education. 
• Teachers can be a support person, when a child does not have that support at home. Many children are given wonderful, supportive parents. But sometimes a child’s home life may be really difficult. A teacher can help this child and be his or her advocate.  
• Good teachers make their students feel loved and safe. This enables students to learn more effectively. “The science says to us that, in fact, the way the brain functions and grows, it needs safety, it needs warmth, it actually even needs hugs,” Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond said in an interview. “We actually learn in a state of positive emotion much more effectively than we can learn in a state of negative emotion. That has huge implications for what we do in schools.”
• Teachers can equip their pupils to be life-long learners. Learning to love learning— this is one of the most important skills that a teacher can pass on to his or her students. If a child learns to embrace new skills and always pursue a challenge, that child can achieve incredible goals. 
• Teachers are role models. Many students—around 75%— look up to their teachers as positive examples, according to one source . 

Teachers, YOU are impacting the next generation. You are impacting and potentially changing the world. That is why the International School Project (ISP) exists. We believe that you are some of the most influential people in society. We can empower you to have an even greater impact. We encourage teachers, equip them, and care for them.   

Together, we will change the world!

What ISP teachers are saying :

• “I have become inspired to do all I can for the next generation.” 
• “The model cannot be overestimated. They [ISP teachers] work in schools; they are extremely busy and yet they find time and energy to do the most important thing, that is, make a difference in people’s lives.” 
• “I did not realize that teachers’ influence on the future of the country was so huge!” 

Learn more about how ISP equips teachers to change the world!  

Opper, I. Teachers Matter: Understanding Teachers’ Impact on Student Achievement.  “Teachers matter more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling.” link

Terada, Y. (2019). Understanding a teacher’s long-term impact. Edutopia . link

Tornio, S. (2017). 11 Surprising Statistics That Sum Up the Life of a Teacher.  Changing lives every day! We Are Teachers. link

Tornia, S. (2019). 12 Powerful statistics that prove why teachers matter. We Are Teachers. link

[email protected]

5801 N. Union Blvd., Suite 201 Colorado Springs, CO 80918

866.477.1515

• Utility Menu

Learning to Change the World

By Connie K. Chung

Portions of the essay below was adapted and recently published in the book, Empowering Global Citizens, by Reimers, Chopra, Chung, Higdon, and O'Donnell

Researchers have noted that traditional global citizenship education (GCE) curriculum encourages students to understand globalization; to adopt a self-critical approach to how they and their nation are implicated in local and global problems; to engage in intercultural perspectives and diversity (Pashby, 2008); and to recognize and use their political agency towards effecting change and promoting social and environmental justice (Eidoo et al, 2011).  Schurgurensky (2005) observes, “transformative citizenship learning involves the nurturing of caring and critical citizens who raise important questions and problems in overt ways” and “probe the status quo” (Eidoo et al, 2011).  “Andreotti (2006) further draws the distinction between “soft” and “critical” global citizenship education and looks to critical literacy for a pedagogical approach that  “prioritizes critical reflection and asks learners to recognize their own context and their own and others’ epistemological and ontological assumptions. 

Furthermore, she argues that in order “to think otherwise” and to transform views and relationships, learners must engage with their own and others’ perspectives.  Andreotti’s ‘critical’ global citizenship model promotes citizenship action as “a choice of the individual after a careful analysis of the context of intervention, of different views, of power relations (especially the position of who is intervening) and of short and long term (positive and negative) implications of goals and strategies” (p. 7). Key concepts of critical GCE include transformation, criticality, self-reflexivity, diversity, complicity, and agency” (Eidoo et al, 2011). 

Existing Curriculum vs Our Global Citizenship Curriculum

While the AP curriculum emphasizes breadth of knowledge, and the US standards movement lists discrete skills, knowledge, or attitudes that people wish to impart to the students, our curriculum seeks to develop a depth of knowledge and “expert” thinking required to solve problems.  In our desire to integrate knowledge, skills and attitudes – that is, not only impart knowledge, but also focus on teaching skills and attitudes – that would prepare learners for the 21st century, we found that a focus on developing an interdisciplinary approach to curricular development was necessary.  When we looked at the AP curriculum as a possible framework for curriculum design, for example, we were impressed by the breadth of knowledge that was required by the program; however, we ultimately felt that we wanted to emphasize depth of knowledge, given the kind of “expert” thinking required to solve problems.

In addition, rather than imposing on the students a list of discrete skills, knowledge, or attitudes that we wished to impart to the students, we wanted the students to find and make meaning in their learning.   Thus, our curriculum focuses on learning that is integrated and grounded in current social, political, economic, and other concerns, focusing on issues that are complex, with no easy answers or solutions.  We believed that students would find value in, and desire to engage with, issues that were “real” and authentic; and that in being asked to engage with these real-life issues, the learners would be more motivated to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to understand and solve these issues.  

For example, our curriculum centers on issues like immigration and the impact of human migration on the environment, and the kinds of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are necessary to address these issues.  Such an approach led us to fields such as demography that is not a subject that is taught in many schools, but a topic that we thought was essential for learning how to address issues about population growth and its impact.  Another example of difference from other more traditional global citizenship education curriculum would be our curriculum’s focus on social entrepreneurship; while a few business classes may be taught in high schools, we deliberately brought the subject to the lower grades, and coupled it with developing students’ understanding of international development and notions of justice and equity.

Banks (2008) and Nieto (2002) note that a “transformative” education teaches people to develop decision-making and social action skills; identify problems in society; acquire knowledge related to their communities; name and clarify their values; and take thoughtful individual and collective civic action to address inequities and injustices. In structuring such a “transformative education,” focused on developing students’ cognitive knowledge (Fitzgerald, 2005) by focusing on topics such as the following: development and sustainable development; cultural identity and diversity; human rights and responsibilities; equality and social justice; peace, conflict and resolution; geographic, economic, political, social and environmental knowledge about the world.  We also sought to ground these pieces of information by introducing students to exemplars of change agents, both historical and current figures, who have worked and are working to create positive change in their communities. 

Like other global education curriculum, we focused on intercultural competencies to develop the values, attitudes and perceptions of students.  For example, we wanted students to understand how cultures can shape identities, including their own.  Through our curriculum, we sought to develop empathy in the students through perspective taking exercises (Bob Selman at HGSE has written on this topic).  We also draw upon literature and the arts to encourage creative expression in the global studies course.  In addition to individual development, we focused on the students’ development as members of teams, who are able to work productively in and lead effectively inter-cultural teams.  We built in curricular opportunities for student so develop skills in negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution skills. 

Agents of Change

In developing the curriculum we also took into consideration such findings from a study about teaching justice to privileged adolescents (Seider, 2009), which noted that mere knowledge about the world’s problems will not only overwhelm students and lead them to disengage with the world.  For example, when faced with data about global poverty, students may react with defensiveness, so we incorporated into the curriculum, not just data about problems and skills to overcome them, but also examples of viable solutions to issues, and people working toward those kinds of change, to impart to students the idea that these issues can be overcome. 

We focused on introducing choice, developing capacity, and motivating them to contribute to the world around them, in small and large ways (2005).  We sought to cultivate in the students a focus on being innovative and creative in formulating solutions to real global challenges and seizing global opportunities.  To do so, the curriculum is largely project-based, with a cumulative sequencing of units within and across grades.   We include how geographic, disciplinary, and professional contexts matter in devising effective solutions to global challenges.   In particular, we sought to ground students in the reality of the world, but also infused the notion of agency and possibility, along with concrete skills and projects that would teach them to be agents of change. 

Along with curricular emphases on fairness and global citizenship, we also wanted to make sure that students felt that they had the freedom to choose how they wanted to engage with these issues, so that they did not feel the emphases was heavy-handed.  For example, at the high school level, the final projects are broadly conceived and open to the students’ own conceptions of how they wanted to apply these skills and knowledge, whether they wanted to be a scientist, an artist, or a politician.  We wanted a strong core body of knowledge and skills that would be ably used by learners who had developed the attitude of compassion, responsibility and efficacy about changing the world around them.  While the students will be thoughtfully guided by their teachers in developing these projects, they are ultimately encouraged and are able to carry out their projects independently.  

Project-Based & Group Learning

Through a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are taught in project-based, cumulative sequencing of units within and across grades, our various units about different cultures and regions of the world were intended to cultivate the students’ ability not only to seek and identify the best global practices and transfer them across geographic, disciplinary, and professional contexts, but also in their ability to recognize how these different geographic, cultural, and other perspectives matter in devising effective solutions to global challenges.   More than merely engaging in individualized learning, students are asked to interact with others, learn with others, and influence others.  For example, in grade 5 they are asked to create an awareness project about the MDGs; then in grade 6, they are asked to implement an advocacy project about the MDGs. 

Assessment: More than a Number

From kindergarten, students are not only learning, but are engaged in demonstrating their understanding of what they learned throughout the year.  We integrated formative and summative assessments throughout the course.  More than merely displaying knowledge, students are asked to engage in creating a product, whether it be a puppet show (kindergarten), a book (grade 1), a business (grade 3) a game (grade 4), or a social enterprise (grade 8).  Learning is constructed as cumulative, with knowledge building on prior experience and understanding. For example, in Grade 3, students learn to understand global inter-dependence through participating in creating a social enterprise project in chocolate manufacturing.  The learning objective is to build an entrepreneurial spirit in young children through an understanding of global food chains using the case of chocolate, specifically.  The primary geographic focus is West Africa, in chocolate manufacturing countries. 

The year ends with a capstone activity that gives the students the opportunity to engage in complex, activity-based tasks that incorporate the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that they have learned during the year. The capstone activity for grade 3 is to create a marketing campaign for the chocolate they have made and to differentiate their product based on the culture of their target market.  They build toward this capstone activity through the following units: 3.1 The life of a chocolate and its history; 3.2 Let’s make our own chocolate; 3.3 Understanding the culture of my market; 3.4 Marketing my chocolate in school; 3.5 Child Labor; 3.6 Taking my chocolate to the market; 3.7 Moving beyond chocolate.

Other capstone activities include the following.  Kindergarten – Take part in a puppet show performance on understanding difference; Grade 1 – Create a “Book of Me”;  Grade 2 - Educate others; Grade 3 -  Create a business (chocolate); Grade 4 - Create a game about civilizations; Grade 5 - Create an awareness project on MDGs; Grade 6 - Implement an advocacy project about an MDG; Grade 7 – Participate in extended service learning; Grade 8 - Create a Social Enterprise around a MDG.  In many cases, the capstone activities build on each other; in grade 5, for example, they are asked to create an awareness project to inform others about the MDGs while in grade 6, they are then asked to implement an advocacy project about the MDGs. 

Our aim is to have students who are capable of demonstrating innovation and creativity in formulating solutions to real global challenges and seizing global opportunities.  Our various units about different cultures and regions of the world are intended to foster the students’ ability not only to seek and identify the best global practices and transfer them across geographic, disciplinary, and professional contexts, but also in their ability to recognize how these different geographic, cultural, and other perspectives matter in devising effective solutions to global challenges.  They are able to think in nuanced ways, paying attention to local details and understand that there is variation not only across contexts but within contexts as well.

View the discussion thread.

About GEII's Blog

GEII's blog is about learning and teaching in the 21st century. We encourage you to comment on posts because we believe learning and teaching happen, in part, through exchanges of ideas.  Please note that the views expressed on this blog represent the views of the named authors, not necessarily those of the Global Education Innovation Initiative or the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Blog posts by month

• October 2016 (1)
• August 2016 (1)
• July 2016 (1)
• May 2016 (2)
• April 2016 (1)

This site belongs to UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning

IIEP Learning Portal

Search form

Educators and students as transformative agents of change.

Enhancing Teacher and Student Engagement through the Creation of Thinking Classrooms

Recent studies and reports, such as UNESCO’s Position paper on education post-2015 and IIEP’s From schooling to learning report , continue to highlight the central role played by passionate, inspired and highly skilled educators in supporting student learning.  Given this reality, we must continue to carefully consider the ways in which we engage with the ‘instructional core’ (Elmore, 2008) as educators – the relationship between teachers, students and the learning objectives. The key foundation to developing quality education lies in nurturing the learner’s capacity to engage in quality thinking through critical inquiry within the central teaching and learning dynamic.

As educators, how can we ensure that our approaches to teaching and learning adeptly foster the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to tackle complex global challenges, as well as cultivate conceptions of citizenship grounded in genuine commitments to sustainable development, equity and peacebuilding within diverse contexts?  In order to develop the deep understandings, lifelong skills and ethical orientations that they will require to thrive in an increasingly multifaceted, pluralistic and interdependent world, students must be actively engaged in their learning.

Conceptualizations of learner engagement are most robust when, as Bruce Beairsto writes ,

…they focus on the students’ perspective in terms of the nature and degree of commitment they feel.

Engagement is not something we can cause in others, but we can provide opportunities for students to be inspired, encouraged and supported in becoming personally committed to their own learning.  Focusing on levels of engagement that promote mere compliance, entertainment or interest are not adequate for developing the deep understandings, skills and dispositions needed today; learners must be challenged and transformed through their educational encounters.

Conditions for intellectual engagement to flourish happen when learners are continuously faced with problematic situations through meaningful inquiries where they must make reasoned judgments that competently employ the intellectual tools necessary for quality thinking.  This is the definition of critical thinking that has been developed over two decades by The Critical Thinking Consortium (or TC 2 ), an educational not-for-profit founded and based in Canada.   

The Consortium’s aim is to work in sound, sustained ways with educators and related organizations to inspire, support and advocate for the infusion of critical, creative and collaborative thinking as an educational goal and as a method of teaching and learning. Our goals are to foster in learners:

• enhanced abilities and inclinations to think effectively
• deeper understanding of the curriculum
• increased engagement in the world
• greater willingness to act in thoughtful, ethically responsible ways

TC 2 , has developed a series of powerful frameworks for surfacing, nurturing and assessing quality thinking ( thinking that is critical, creative and collaborative ) through the development of a thinking classroom that has been highlighted in a recent publication, Creating Thinking Classrooms (Gini-Newman and Case, 2015).  A thinking classroom is one where students think in order to learn, and learn how to think.  As we often say at TC 2 , whoever is doing the thinking, is the one who is doing the learning. 

Within this framework and conceptualization, thinking becomes the methodology for learning, and simultaneously enhances the capacity to learn basic facts through a critical inquiry focus . The four key elements of creating a thinking classroom or context are: shaping the climate to support thinking, creating opportunities for thinking, building capacity for thinking, and providing guidance to inform thinking.  All four elements are crucial but efforts in any of these areas can begin to enhance our approach to nurturing quality thinking.

Professional learning is, as highlighted in the From schooling to learning report something that is best done with teachers, not to them.  Teacher engagement and student engagement are complementary.  Providing teachers with meaningful opportunities for reflection, supporting them in refining their capacity to engage students in relevant and authentic learning opportunities, and developing tools for assessing their instructional choices are important dimensions of robust and meaningful professional learning. 

The Critical Thinking Consortium’s approach to professional learning invites educators to both reimagine and reconnect with their role as profound transformative agents of change in students’ lives.  Conceptualizing teaching and learning through a quality thinking framework inspires new possibilities within the classroom, and enhances teacher capacity to develop effective instructional strategies to support the development of quality thinking in all learners. 

A measureable target and relevant indicator within broader educational goals would be tracking the extent to which teacher capacity to surface, nurture and assess quality thinking as a key educational outcome has been improved. In addition, this approach to both educator and student learning nurtures capacities and competencies that transcend the classroom, thereby becoming a powerful model for lifelong learning that has universal relevance across cultures and contexts.

TC 2 ’s role in strengthening the capacity of the educational system to translate or transform resources and methods available to teachers to enhance learning is achieved through an approach that focuses on inspiring wonder, curiosity and citizenship by problematizing the curriculum and making it a problem to solve, rather than a series of facts to be memorized, learned and transmitted to students in unthinking ways.  I recently had the opportunity to not only develop a comprehensive critical inquiry unit designed to inspire and nurture environmental citizenship in intermediate students, but to also teach through this unit in a grade 7 classroom.  My experience and reflections with enhancing teaching and learning through a critical inquiry approach have been captured in a recent piece I wrote for UNESCO’s Blue Dot magazine , as well as a recent interview on how placing a thinking approach at the center of education transforms teaching and learning.

Quality education has been cited as the most influential force for alleviating poverty, improving health and livelihoods, increasing prosperity and shaping more inclusive, sustainable and peaceful societies.  Put simply, quality education is among the most transformative avenues for creating a preferred global future. The stakes for improving teaching and learning have never been higher. Realizing the profound potential and power of education arises when educators and students take their place as transformative agents of change through meaningful engagements with curricular objectives.  Thinking classrooms and contexts that create opportunities for critical, creative and collaborative thinking to flourish are integral in nurturing learners capable of responding to the complexities of the 21st century with insight, effectiveness and vision.

Works Cited

Beairsto, Bruce. “ Engagement in learning: finding the depth beyond diligence ”. Critical Discussions Series .  The Critical Thinking Consortium (online piece, no date given)

Elmore, Richard F. 2008.   Improving the instructional core . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

International Working Group on Education. 2014. From schooling to learning . Varghese, N.V. (Ed). Paris: UNESCO-IIEP. 

UNESCO. 2014.  Position paper on education post-2015 .

Gini-Newman, G., and  Case, R. 2015. Creating thinking classrooms: leading educational change for a 21st century world . Vancouver, BC: The Critical Thinking Consortium.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection

Equipping teachers with globally competent practices: A mixed methods study on integrating global competence and teacher education

Shea n. kerkhoff.

a Department of Educator Preparation and Leadership, College of Education, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 1 University Blvd., St. Louis, MO, 63122, USA

Megan E. Cloud

b College of Education, University of Missouri, Columbia, USA

Associated Data

• • The Global Teaching Model is situated locally, integrated with standards, critical framing, and intercultural collaboration.
• • Our data showed that global education was not a part of participants’ current curriculum.
• • However, teachers believed that global competence was important for them and their students.
• • Our findings show that teachers need guidance in translating global education theory to practice.

Education leaders recommend that global competence–global citizenship mentality and knowledge development for global participation–be incorporated into school curricula. This mixed methods study examined teacher’s perceptions and self-reported practices of globally competent teaching. Data was collected from teachers taking a graduate education course infused with global learning. Results suggest teachers value and desire to enact globally competent teaching but need practical direction for classroom effectuation. Data manifest all four dimensions of the Global Teaching Model (i.e., situated relevant practice, integrated global learning, critical and cultural consciousness raising, and intercultural collaboration for transformative action) to differing degrees. This study provides evidence for the Global Teaching Model as a prospective framework and emphasizes the critical dimension when internationalizing teacher education.

1. Introduction

Today’s world is increasingly interconnected, and growth in global migration has led to more diversity in schools worldwide ( Suárez-Orozco, 2001 ). The authors’ home is no exception to this international trend. In Missouri the number of foreign-born residents increased 51 percent from 2000 to 2010 ( Asia Society, 2018 ) and our hometown of St. Louis led the nation in immigrant population growth in 2016 ( Hulsey, 2016 ; US Census, 2017 ).

Education leaders have called for students to develop global competence for our interconnected world ( Rizvi & Lingard, 2009 ; OECD & Asia Society, 2018 ; US DOE, 2018 ). Longview Foundation defines global competence as “a body of knowledge about world regions, cultures, and global issues, and the skills and dispositions to engage responsibly and effectively in a global environment” ( 2008, p. 7 ). To be globally competent, students need global citizenship dispositions and the multiple literacies necessary for participation in a digital, global world ( Kerkhoff, 2017 ). In order for change to occur in education, however, the extant literature shows that teachers must be trained in teaching global competence ( Kerkhoff, Dimitrieska, Woerner, & Alsup, 2019 ; West, 2012 ; Yemini, Tibbitts, & Goren, 2019 ).

Internationalizing teacher preparation can help teachers personally develop global competence and gain the knowledge and resources necessary for teaching global competence to their K-12 students ( Longview Foundation, 2008 ; Zhao, 2010 ). Traveling abroad is one approach; however, cost makes international travel an unrealistic option for many teachers ( Parkhouse, Tichnor-Wagner, Glazier, & Cain, 2016 ) and the Coronavirus pandemic makes international travel unlikely in the foreseeable future. In this study, the authors investigate ways of internationalizing teacher education curricula that do not require travel. Primarily, the purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions and practices related to teaching global competence after participating in the first author’s teacher education course framed with the Global Teaching Model (GTM). A secondary purpose was to examine the feasibility of the GTM, operationalized and validated in Kerkhoff (2017) , as a framework for understanding globally competent teaching.

The GTM was developed through a sequential mixed methods process beginning with in-depth interviews with 24 expert global teachers followed by factor analysis to determine if the findings that emerged from qualitative analysis were generalizable to a larger population of 630 teachers. The process yielded a 19-item Teaching for Global Readiness scale (TGRS) and the four factor GTM. The creation of the GTM was framed in critical theory focused on equity worldwide (i.e., Andreotti, 2010 ; Wahlström, 2014 ).

2. Postcolonialism: a critical lens for global teaching

For educators concerned with equity and critical pedagogy, postcolonialism offers a theoretical lens for globally competent teaching ( Masemula, 2015 ; OöConnor & Zeichner, 2011 ). Postcolonialism according to Andreotti (2010) acknowledges that current societal injustices are directly related to the history of colonization. According to Andreotti, “Our stories of reality, our knowledges, are always situated (culturally bound), partial (what one sees may not be what another sees), contingent (context dependent) and provisional (they change)” (p. 236). Her postcolonial take on global education emphasizes a non-coercive inner process where one negotiates for a broader understanding of human experiences. Postcolonialism offers plural epistemologies where multiple truths are recognized because multiple human experiences are acknowledged and valued.

Using postcolonialism as the theoretical lens, Subedi (2013) put forth three approaches to global education: deficit, accommodation, and decolonization. A deficit global curriculum maintains a strict dichotomy between “us and them.” Eurocentrism is viewed as the dominant ideology, cultural ideal, and lens through which all other cultures and peoples are viewed. In this approach, global discussions center on the problems of the non-Westernized world. The fundamental presupposition of the deficit approach is that Western values are superior and, therefore, the answer to global “problems.” When global events or cultures are presented in a deficit curriculum, they are positioned as dangerous, deviant, and “not worthy of serious academic inquiry” ( Subedi, 2013, p. 628 ).

Similarly, the accommodation global curriculum does little to counter the underlying assumptions of Western/European superiority and ignores the ways Western values acquired historical privilege and power; however, it does bring awareness of global perspectives and events into the classroom. Chosen texts expose students to diverse voices from other cultures while still upholding Western values as the norm. Although well-intentioned, the absence of critical and sociocultural awareness perpetuates stereotypes and reifies the dichotomy of the West and the rest.

Decolonizing global curriculum, however, takes a critical approach when examining the social, cultural, and political influences of knowledge production. Decolonizing is the preferred method of global learning specifically because it comes from critical (concerned with power) and resource (as opposed to deficit) frames. When studying global perspectives, decolonization seeks to read, formulate, and address “events from the perspective of marginalized subjects” ( Subedi, 2013, p. 634 ). It advocates for an anti-essentialist curriculum that dispels the notions of monolithic cultures and the justification of hierarchies due to cultural differences.

In addition to decolonizing curriculum, Ndimande (2018) calls for decolonizing research that influences education policy and practice. This research project hopes to contribute to decolonizing efforts in this field. We are aware of the limitations in reaching this goal, however, as our university affiliation implicates us in the legacy of colonialism ( Subedi, 2013 ). Though we may not be able to eliminate all bias or Western influence on our research, we aim to avoid deficit language and “us and them” conceptualizations, and accept plural epistemologies. While we acknowledge that publishing this research benefits us as authors, we hope it will primarily contribute to transformative educational practices that amplify equity and social justice in teacher education.

3. Pedagogies and models for globally competent teaching

O’Connor and Zeichner (2011) describe globally competent teaching as a practice that is simultaneously broad and specific: Broad in that it transcends disciplines and age-levels, and specific in that it should be relevant to local socio-political contexts and students’ cultural identities. In this study, we focused on global competence in teacher education. Specifically, we use Kerkhoff (2017) empirically validated Global Teaching Model (GTM) as a conceptual framework. In the following sections, we review the relevant teacher education research and then synthesize extant literature with the four dimensions of the GTM.

3.1. Curriculum and instruction in global teacher education

Research describes curricula and pedagogies of global teacher education in multidimensional ways. Some colleges of education have integrated global issues and cultures into existing curricula ( Carano, 2013 ; Ferguson-Patrick, Reynolds, & Macqueen, 2018 ; Poole & Russell, 2015 ), while others have created stand-alone global education courses ( Kerkhoff et al., 2019 ; Quezada & Cordeiro, 2016 ). Through an extensive literature review, Yemini and colleagues found that pedagogies in global teacher education research are innovative (but not necessarily new) takes on existing pedagogies ( 2019 ). Mansilla and Chua (2017) call these innovative approaches to global education “signature pedagogies.” Signature pedagogies include engaging teachers in inquiry about the world ( Kerkhoff, 2018 ), participating in intercultural dialogue ( Kopish, Shahri, & Amira, 2019 ; Ukpokodu, 2010 ; Zong, 2009 ), and playing a role in simulations with global content ( Myers & Rivero, 2019 ).

Tichnor-Wagner, Glazier, Parkhouse, and Cain undertook extensive qualitative research on signature pedagogies for globally competent teaching. They produced the Globally Competent Teaching Continuum (GCTC; 2019). The continuum signifies that globally competent teaching is a developmental progression. The continuum includes twelve components organized as knowledge, skills, or dispositions, such as the disposition of empathy and valuing multiple perspectives and the skill to facilitate intercultural and international conversations that promote active listening, critical thinking, and perspective recognition . Although all twelve components (see Table 1 ) are theoretically sound, the number of dimensions in this continuum may impede its use as a heuristic in teacher education.

Comparison of the Globally Competent Teaching Continuum Twelve Components and the Four Factors of the Global Teaching Model.

3.2. Global teaching model

Kerkhoff’s (2017) GTM is based on a mixed methods study with K-12 educators. Because global teaching is contextualized within a nation ( Fujikane, 2003 ), the model was developed for and validated specifically in the U.S. K-12 context. The GTM comprises four factors: situated, integrated, critical, and transactional. These factors served as the conceptual framework for both the course and this study, and provided teachers a heuristic for implementing global teaching. When placed side-by-side, as in Table 1 , all but one (i.e., communicate in multiple languages) of the GCTC’s twelve elements aligned with the four factors of the GTM.

GTM’s first factor is situated practice, meaning teaching is culturally relevant to both students in the class and socio-political issues in the local community. Situated practice includes the dispositions of valuing diversity and students’ voices. Situated practice is culturally relevant ( Ladson-Billings, 2004 ), helps break down stereotypes, and works against essentializing people, places, or times in history ( Apple, 2011 ; Mikander, 2016 ). Situated practice acknowledges local and global connections: Teachers stay current on local and global events and consider multiple perspectives (even those that challenge their own beliefs). Teachers also reflect on their own cultures, assumptions, and biases ( Hull & Stornaiuolo, 2014 ). Most importantly, teachers guide students in doing all of the above.

Integrated, the next GTM factor, means global learning is not a one-off but incorporated across grade levels and disciplines. Teaching and assessment of global learning are part of course objectives. Teachers build a repertoire of resources related to global issues in the discipline/s they teach. Teachers understand how the world is interconnected, and can analyze global challenges and inequities through a disciplinary lens. Integrated global learning requires students to construct knowledge about the world through authentic inquiry and experiential learning ( Choo, 2017 ). Students understand how their actions affect people in other countries and vice versa ( Mikander, 2016 ). Through situated and integrated global learning, teachers show students how both their lives and their studies are already globally interconnected.

The third dimension is critical. Global teaching through a critical frame considers issues of power, privilege, and oppression so that teaching does not recreate hierarchies found in the world ( Delpit, 2006 ; Freire, 1970 ). Critical includes the critical literacy practices of analyzing source reliability and bias, and constructing claims based on evidence from wide-ranging authors. Teachers involve multiple, international, and traditionally marginalized voices and encourage perspective-taking and empathy-building ( Pashby, 2008 ; Tichnor-Wagner et al., 2019). Students listen/read first to understand different perspectives ( Freire, 1970 ) and then write/speak their perspective in ways that demonstrate intercultural and global consciousness ( Pashby, 2008 ). Part of critical framing is reflexivity, or what O’Connor and Zeichner (2011) referred to as “sociocultural consciousness,” where teachers acknowledge they are cultural and political beings and examine their biases. The development of critical literacy is one way to raise sociocultural consciousness.

Fourth, transactional experiences involve international partnerships, through which students engage in intercultural dialogue and construct knowledge about the world ( Kerkhoff, 2018 ). Transactional experiences mean learning with other people through active listening and critical thinking. It also means problem-solving with others in solidarity, rather than solving others’ problems in ways that reinforce colonial power relationships. Transaction means there is an equal give-and-take, and global teaching requires equitable partnerships with global communities ( Wahlström, 2014 ).

The first two factors, situated and integrated, describe how global teaching can be connected to existing curricular structures and instructional practices. The last two factors, critical and transactional, explain how teaching about the world can be approached from a critical frame and commitment to equity.

This article describes a mixed methods self-study of a graduate-level teacher education course called Learning through Inquiry. Self-study involves systematic analysis towards both the improvement of one’s practice and contribution to the field ( Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2000 ). Research questions were: (1) To what degree do participants report implementing global teaching practices in their K-12 classrooms? (2) How do participants understand the role of global competence? (3) According to participants, what influenced how they employed globally competent teaching? With these research questions as the hub ( Maxwell & Loomis, 2003 ), we used concurrent nested mixed methods by collecting both qualitative and quantitative data simultaneously, embedding the quantitative within the qualitative ( Creswell, Plano Clark, Gutmann, & Hanson, 2003 ).

4.1. Context

The study took place during an online masters’ level education course at a U.S. urban university. The course (Learning through Inquiry) was organized into eight modules, including modules on collaborative learning, culturally sustaining pedagogy, and global learning. Each module contained readings on education theory, discussion boards where students interacted, and assignments where students were tasked with translating theory into practice. Instructional plans for the global learning module can be found in Appendix A . The first author was the course instructor, and the second author was the research assistant.

4.2. Participants

All participants were enrolled in the university’s masters of education program. Every student in the first author’s course was invited to participate; 19 consented to analysis of their coursework and four agreed to follow-up interviews. Consent was also obtained from 56 students (focal group = 28, comparison group = 28) for anonymous completion of the Teaching for Global Readiness Scale (TGRS). The focal group consisted of students in the first author’s course, and the comparison group (recruited from a separate online masters education course) consisted of students with no known prior exposure to globally-focused teaching curriculum.

The focus course served both the masters in curriculum and instruction degree and the alternative teaching certification program, so at the time of the study, all participants were inservice teachers, but not all were yet licensed. Years of teaching experience ranged from one to 18. Participants’ schools were spread across the state and spanned the spectrum of public, charter, and private, as well as rural, suburban, and urban. Five participants identified as African American, two as Asian American, one as Latinx, and 12 as white. Grades and subjects taught varied (see Table 2 ).

Profile of Focal Participants.

4.3. Data sources

Self-study requires that the researcher/teacher provides convincing evidence ( Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2000 ). In order to provide copious evidence, we utilized both qualitative and quantitative data sources. Focal group participants contributed both qualitative and quantitative data; quantitative data alone were collected from the control group ( Table 3 ).

Table of data collection.

Qualitative data were collected via course artifacts, i.e., discussions, self-reflections, and lesson plans from the global learning module in Canvas. Students completed lesson plans and personal inquiry projects on topics related to global education and wrote reflections upon completion of each. Focal participants completed the TGRS at the beginning and end of the semester and reflected on their growth, facilitating self-reflection on TGRS-related teaching practices during their qualitative interviews.

One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with four participants the semester following the course. Due to the participants’ geographic spread, interviews were conducted face-to-face when possible and using Zoom when not. All were recorded and transcribed. The protocol can be found in Appendix B .

Quantitative data were collected anonymously via a knowledge inventory and the TGRS. The knowledge inventory measured participants’ self-reported knowledge level of concepts covered in the course, including the concept of global learning. The survey comprised 21 questions adapted from TGRS, which measures teachers’ attitudes about and frequency of teaching practices that promote global readiness. The original scale ( Kerkhoff, 2017 ) was found to be a reliable and valid measure of global teaching (χ 2 (143) 246.909, χ 2 to df = 1.73, CFI = 0.960, TLI = 0.953, SRMR = 0.061, RMSEA = 0.051, α = 0.88). Cronbach’s alpha showed good reliability of the adapted TGRS ( α = .89). A list of scale items can be found in Table 4 .

Group Means by Teaching for Global Readiness Scale Item.

Note : Parentheses around subscales indicate items that have not yet been validated.

4.4. Quantitative analysis

To inform instruction, the knowledge inventory was given to participants at the beginning of the course. Descriptive data are reported to show participants’ knowledge of global learning before engaging in course material. TGRS was administered to two groups (i.e., focal and control). Group means from individual scale items were analyzed using two-sample independent t -tests. The TGRS was anonymous in order to mitigate instructor’s influence and promote honest self-reflection. Because the TGRS was anonymous, we could not conduct a paired t -test or compare individual’s pre and post tests; instead, we utilized a two-sample independent t -test to compare post result means against a control group. To contribute to validating and operationalizing the GTM model, TGRS post-course responses were then quantitatively compared between the focal and control groups.

4.5. Qualitative analysis

Qualitative data sources were analyzed using a priori and open coding. For a priori coding, we used the GTM four factors, paying particular attention to statistically significant items from quantitative analysis (i.e., using texts written by authors from diverse countries , guided students to examine their cultural identity , constructed claims based on primary sources , and built a repertoire of resources related to global education ).

After coding individually, we met to discuss and reach consensus about coding parameters. We ultimately agreed valuable data were not captured solely by a priori codes; therefore, the next round included a priori as well as open coding. We determined that a hierarchical process was most appropriate for the next step. We converted the four a priori codes into themes and placed related codes under each theme looking for patterns within to create categorical codes.

Within each code, we looked for illustrative key statements (i.e., participant quotes in the data) that answered the research questions. Codes were triangulated by looking at multiple data sources and multiple participants ( Yin, 2014 ). Counter examples were also coded to increase trustworthiness of the findings.

4.6. Ethical considerations

Given that the first author was also the course instructor, we took great care to conduct research in an ethical manner. Institutional Review Board approved protocols were followed for all aspects, including gaining participant consent. Surveys were completed anonymously and, as such, not graded. In addition, one-on-one interviews took place after grades were submitted. These methods were enacted to protect the participants; yet we acknowledge these data cannot be separated from a contextual power difference between the researcher (as professor) and the participants (as her students). It is possible that participants reported what they believed the professor wanted to hear rather than their honest perceptions.

5. Findings

We sought to investigate three research questions: (1) How frequently do participants report implementing global teaching practices in their K-12 classrooms? (2) How do participants perceive the role of global competence? (3) According to participants, what influenced how they enacted globally competent teaching? Quantitative results addressed RQ1 and are reported first, followed by qualitative findings concerning RQ2 and 3.

5.1. Quantitative results

Quantitative results were derived by statistical analyses of data from both the knowledge inventory and TGRS.

5.2. Knowledge inventory

At the beginning of the course, participants complete a knowledge inventory on instructional concepts. Using Google forms, we gave the following instructions: On a scale of 1–5, how well do you know the following instructional concepts? For the item on global learning, only one participant believed that global learning was a current part of their instructional repertoire ( Fig. 1 ).

Participant responses to the knowledge inventory item on global learning.

5.3. Teaching for global readiness scale

Descriptive data are reported in Table 4 . Participants responded to 21 statements. The first 16 inquired about frequency of implementation over the past two weeks using a 1–5 scale (i.e., Never, Once in two weeks, Once a week, 2–3 times a week, Daily ), and five addressed attitudes about practices across a typical semester (i.e., Strongly disagree, Disagree, Neither agree nor disagree, Agree, Strongly agree ).

Focal participants (i.e. teachers exposed to global competence via their graduate teaching course) reported implementing 81 % of TGRS practices more than once over two weeks (control group: 56 %), with statistically significant greater frequency in these specific practices: (a) Using texts written by global authors ( M = 2.68, SD = 1.12; M = 1.86, SD = 1.13; p = .0142); (b) Guiding students to examine their cultural identities ( M = 3.32, SD = 1.12; M = 2.43, SD = 1.50; p = .0197); and (c) Asking students to construct claims based on primary sources ( M = 2.68, SD = 1.25; M = 1.96, SD = 1.22; p = .0434). When reporting on five additional practices used over a typical semester, significant difference was seen between group attitudes on the following item: Focal teachers believed they “[built] a repertoire of global-education resources” more strongly than control teachers ( M = 3.32, SD = 1.02; M = 2.43, SD = 1.31; p = .009). Of the four subscales, significant difference was seen within situated, integrated, and critical, but not within the transactional subscale.

5.4. Qualitative findings

Our qualitative analysis focused on patterns across participants. Key statements that illustrate those patterns are described below, organized around the four dimensions of the GTM (situated practice, integrated global learning, critical framing, and transactional experiences), and followed by challenges related to global teaching that participants perceived.

5.4.1. Situated practice

The factor of situated practice was a frequently coded theme. Under this theme, we noticed two categorical codes: cultivating students’ cultural identity and expanding the definition of relevance.

5.4.1.1. Cultivating students’ cultural identity

Cultivating cultural identity begins with understanding that teaching and learning are cultural practices. Teachers understand themselves to be cultural beings and help students to build the same understanding. For example, after studying the global module, a science teacher created an enduring understanding for a lesson plan: “Students are aware of how differing cultural contexts may affect how a certain mutation can be viewed in society as beneficial or harmful.” This understanding went beyond scientific knowledge of mutations to an understanding of how culture shapes one’s perceptions of scientific concepts. This particular lesson plan involved readings on congenital twins in India and the U.S. and, based on the news reporting, having students consider cultural assumptions regarding the mutation (i.e., beneficial, neutral, or harmful?).

Another participant mentioned she had taken for granted that students would develop cultural identities outside of school. Before the course, she had not utilized reading and writing to support the positive development of her students’ cultural identities. She said:

My classroom is full of diverse learners who speak different languages and come from different cultures. Through this course, the importance of embracing students' cultural identity has become clearer. Before, I was guilty of believing that their cultural identity was examined on their own. However, I am now understanding that a teacher can have a crucial role in encouraging students to celebrate their own and their classmates’ cultural identities.

A different participant noted that, although they had discussed culture in class, they had not connected discussions to their students’ cultural identities. This participant felt that learning about students’ cultures, and linking teaching to those cultures, helped them better connect.

Every unit, my students are analyzing primary and secondary sources from people all around the world. But this course made me think more about my students’ cultures. I am able to communicate better with students from other cultures because I am more aware of it. I never thought about how that could affect a student until now.

Overall, participants perceived the connection to their students’ cultural identities as an important component of global teaching. In addition, participants expanded their capacity to make connections in the classroom by connecting cultures outside of U.S. subcultures and connecting current issues.

5.4.1.2. Expanded definition of relevance

Participants studied culturally sustaining pedagogy during a course module. Our readings addressed diverse racial and ethnic identities within the U.S. While studying global learning, participants expanded their definition of cultural relevance to include the intersection of national, racial, and ethnic identities‒–for example, exposing students to black scientists from the U.S., Brazil, and Nigeria. A science teacher commented:

My students enjoy reading about scientists that look or come from places like them, but it would also be special to hear about other scientists that might not share as obvious similarities. My students are comfortable sharing their experiences and perspectives, so to take their global consciousness to the next level, they would benefit from more global lessons.

In his reflection about TGRS, a different science teacher shared his desire to move his teaching away from a Western-centric education in order to better serve his diverse students.

Participants also expanded their definition of relevance to include timeliness. In a discussion board, an English teacher remarked how two teachers found their students enjoyed studying international current events: “I think we often forget that relatable instruction does not have to be about what is going on in our specific communities, but what is going on in the world.” In this way, international current events became relevant because of the time aspect. Students connected to the events because they were happening now.

As mentioned above, participants reported embracing culturally relevant pedagogy before taking the course but found the expansion of social justice to global issues a welcomed addition. One participant immediately implemented a strategy from the course: She began pairing current events with perspective-taking discussion protocols (e.g., this issue matters to me because , to my friends and family because , and to the world because ) in her classroom. She believed perspective-taking was an important component of critical literacy, and using international current events expanded students’ critical analysis to include global viewpoints. A different teacher self-reflected:

I am constantly thinking about how I can empower students to be agents of change within their community. This module has me thinking about the need for my students to widen their perspective even more in order to include the entire world in their thoughts.

Designing situated practice inclusive of global cultures and international current events was a pattern noticed across grade levels and content areas. Participants perceived that situated practice and global learning could be integrated with their current responsibilities, as described in the next section.

5.4.2. Integrating global learning

At the beginning of the semester, all but one teacher reported that their curricula did not integrate global learning. However, participants came to the course believing that global learning was important, were easily persuaded of its importance, or, at the very least, did not actively resist the idea. As a representation of what most participants shared in the discussion post about global competence, a high school teacher stated: “It is important for them to learn how to inquire about the world, understand cultural and global perspectives, and most importantly interact with their world in a respectful way.” Overall, patterns related to integrated global learning included three codes: navigating tensions, focus teacher education on “the how,” and infusion with current pedagogies.

5.4.2.1. Navigating tensions

At the end of the course, a science teacher shared his perception of the tension between the local and the global: “The heavy focus we get on culturally relevant pedagogy, we have been groomed to prioritize locality, and we still should…but our students need to also see and experience beyond because that is what the world will demand of them as they exit high school and continue into universities, trade schools, and the workforce.”

In addition to the tension between local and global, participants also discussed tension between tested and not-tested content. A charter school beginning teacher articulated the pressure she felt to focus on tests. In response to a peer who was able to integrate global literature because she could choose what her students read, this teacher posted the following:

I certainly understand global readiness and can articulate its value, but I'm actually supportive of my district’s control over what is taught. My students achieve higher than their counterparts. ALL of my students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and I don't think that as a privileged white lady, I should be deciding what my students "need". I think global learning is AWESOME, but I'm not able to implement it any time soon. (capitalization in original)

In response to the same discussion thread, another beginning teacher replied:

Implementing global readiness into my science curriculum is going to be quite challenging—given the breadth of topics I need to cover before End-Of-Course testing. Regardless, if I do so intentionally, I can get students to expand their depth of content knowledge to the levels they need for the questioning and reasoning that an End-of-Course exam can throw at them.

As evidenced by the two quotes, participants felt that global learning is important because of the globally interconnected nature of career, college, and community and because students come from diverse cultures; however they did not feel confident in implementing global learning due to tension with tested content.

5.4.2.2. Focus teacher education on “the how.”

Overall, participants reported that the course’s focus on how to integrate global learning was helpful. For example, a high school teacher stated: “Where I see growth is having a better understanding of HOW to implement global readiness into my classroom. I knew the theoretical importance of doing so but really didn't know exactly HOW to go about it effectively” (capitalization in original). Another participant said: “[Teachers] need to learn a framework of how to make sense of … the unfamiliar.” She perceived that a framework was needed for how to enact global teaching.

5.4.2.3. Infusion with current pedagogies

The two most common ways that participants reported uptake of global teaching were infusion with current curricular activities or with a desired pedagogy. For example, in her final project, an elementary teacher explained how she infused global learning with a webquest, a pedagogy that she had desired to bring into her practice:

Because of this course, my 5th grade science students researched natural disasters to complete a webquest that modeled how the Earth spheres interact. During that webquest, I provided my students with articles and videos about natural disasters across the world. This has helped my students learn global competence.

Since webquest was a new pedagogy she had wanted to use, it provided an opportunity to infuse global learning in the instructional design.

Another way participants reported integrating global learning was through the pedagogical practice of students’ reading texts. Incorporating diverse texts from international authors into their classes was seen across grade levels and disciplines, and as reported in the quantitative results, was significantly higher than the control group. Reflecting on the comparison between beginning and end of the semester TGRSs, one teacher said, “One major change has been the sources that I have incorporated into lessons.” A mathematics teacher reported, “I have changed how I use text and global learning within my classroom.” An English teacher said, “I grew the most in incorporating global texts and authors into my teaching.”

By the end of the semester, participants, with the exception of three math teachers, were able to create global lesson plans that infused global learning with their curricula. One math teacher wrote a lesson plan for a government course; the other two math teachers asked to complete a comparative inquiry on mathematics in other countries in an effort to build more globally connected content knowledge. As one participant stated, “I think creating a stockpile of potential global issues related to math over time could be a way to make integrating global readiness easier in future years.” She perceived that gathering global resources would help her integrate global learning in future lessons.

5.4.3. Critical framing of teaching and learning

The next theme is critical framing. Several participants embraced a decolonizing lens. For example, the science teacher mentioned previously vowed to expand his teaching beyond a Western-centric lens. More often, the critical frame was taken up via course opportunities for reflection and lesson creation. We also found that while some participants believed that they held a critical frame, their ideas on applying global learning in the classroom reflected deficit or assimilation mindsets. Two categorical codes ultimately emerged under critical framing: engaging in self-reflexivity and teaching perspective-taking and empathy-building.

5.4.3.1. Self-reflexivity

Participants demonstrated self-reflexivity when they were reflecting on their beliefs and how those beliefs affected others. The view that teachers do not know everything, and that teachers can learn from and with their students, emerged as a frequent code from the reflections data. One participant stated it was her “civic duty” to be aware of all international events, yet most participants perceived mutual teacher/student inquiry of world events to be a strength of the GTM. A special education teacher shared, “It is important to see how you fit into the equation. How your actions or lack of action impact others and how the actions of entire areas across the globe impact others.” In the discussion board, a mathematics teacher commented, “I love that you acknowledge that sometimes you lack being competent. I have also been guilty of this until … visiting Brazil and actually immersing myself in another culture. I think if people took time to investigate global issues, they would see the world in a different way.” This participant perceived her trip abroad as an integral moment in her ability to see different views and to reflect on her own cultural assumptions.

An intriguing finding was how some participants really valued reflexivity as part of teaching. An elementary teacher stated, “I do consider myself to be a pretty reflective teacher, but having an actual piece [PDF of TGRS results] I filled out two separate times was interesting.” Another teacher reflected, “I liked … the recursive reflective nature. We were constantly absorbing new material from a variety of perspectives and this helped bring these to … my mind over and over, to the extent that I actually could try to apply the ideas and could reflect.” Similarly, a different participant shared:

This class really showed me the importance of incorporating reflective practices into my pedagogy. Being a teacher means taking the time to reflect on personal biases, strengths, weaknesses and instructional methods that can be improved to meet students’ needs.

Reflection on one’s teaching and connection to other people, both in the classroom and around the world, is an important component of global teaching from a critical lens. Once teachers engage in self-reflexivity, the next step is teaching students to examine the world with a critical lens. Some participants asked their students to investigate sociopolitical global issues from a standpoint of power, but most remained at an accommodation stance by focusing their teaching on perspective-taking and empathy-building.

5.4.3.2. Teaching perspective-taking and empathy-building

Participants most commonly discussed taking up global teaching by engaging students in perspective-taking and empathy-building. In a discussion post, a few teachers lamented about the lack of empathy students displayed. One wrote: “Similar to Cecilia (pseudonym), my students take a satisfaction survey every quarter, and often most students say that they don't empathize with their peers or try to learn about their backgrounds and situations.” Another teacher in the discussion thread pushed back at the deficit views by saying:

You will be surprised how students really embrace other students’ differences when their cultural identity is exposed for something more than stereotypes. Sometimes when students are sharing a personal experience or family tradition, the other students find it interesting. This helps students get to know and accept each other. I have been doing lessons on empathy, and I have seen my students grow in this area a great deal.

This teacher taught students with social and emotional disabilities and focused her global learning lesson plan on empathy-building. As her quote above demonstrates, she perceived growth in her students. A social studies teacher said his parents from India taught him the value of perspective-taking, a value he brought to the classroom:

To solve any problem, you first must be able to understand the individual you have the problem with—because once you understand how they think and feel, finding the solution becomes easy. It is important for students to be globally competent so they too can also understand how people feel and think.

The reason global competence is important for students to learn, said a science teacher, is so that they can “understand their own and other perspectives, how to engage in RESPECTFUL dialogue, and finally how to take respectful action” (capitalization original). This teacher went on to say how empathy had become a personal mantra and a value he hopes to instill in his students. Another teacher commented, “Understanding how to listen and respond to a variety of perspectives is essential. Without those skills, we will not be able to work together to solve the problems plaguing our society.” Empathy and perspective-taking were considered important skills for communication and problem solving, not only in the context of future jobs, but also for current relationships and solving global social issues.

5.4.4. Transactional experiences

Transactional experiences involve experiential learning through dialogue and collaboration with people from different cultures and nations. This factor was the least coded in participants’ lesson plans and least reported by participants on the TGRS. Two categorical codes related to the theme are barriers to transactional experiences and bringing the world to the classroom.

5.4.4.1. Barriers to transactional experiences

Lack of international and technological resources were barriers to implementation of transactional experiences. In addition, some participants found the name of the factor difficult to remember. For example, an interview participant said, “ Transactional means working with other countries, right? For sure I’m weakest on that one.” She believed her students would benefit from and enjoy working with students from a different country, but she did not personally have international contacts.

Two participants wrote their global learning lesson plans on Native Americans. One teacher chose Native American culture because she had a personal relationship that served as a resource for the transactional experience factor of her lesson. The other teacher thought Native American issues would be both new and relevant to his students. While Native American nations are indeed sovereign, they are at the same time part of the U.S. Should teacher educators encourage their students to push beyond U.S. borders?

For two different participants, the technology component made transactional experiences difficult to include in their classrooms. One said, “I struggle with technology as well but am hoping to compile a database of resources for students to use during activities. My goal is to make a connection through one of the websites that I found and hope we can have a meaningful connection with another teacher, individual or student from around the world.” The other teacher stated her issue was student access to technology: “I am still not in a place to fully carry out a SUCCESSFUL global lesson plan. My first issue is resources. The lessons I have reviewed require a lot of technology. I can barely access technology for my students to write a paper.” Although lack of resources acted as barriers to transactional experiences, participants became creative as they imagined what could be implemented in their classrooms.

5.4.4.2. Bringing the world to the classroom

Connecting with students in other countries is just one way to incorporate transactional experiences. An English teacher considered bringing in experts from diverse countries to interact with her students, saying:

I hope that by bringing an expert to the classroom to discuss topics, my students will work on their speaking and listening skills, and will gain global perspectives that they have not been exposed to in the past. I plan to bring physical people into the classroom, as well as using online resources to do live interviews.

Another English teacher had a similar idea; however, she stated some concerns:

I need to get better at incorporating expert voices for my students’ projects. I get nervous about the last minute timing of multiple events at my school. On the other side, asynchronous technology would take care of this worry and allow the expert to respond to each question on their own time.

This teacher, and others, were not sure how to find experts from multiple perspectives. Another participant stated, “Without networks of people to call upon in each sub-topic, it was difficult to identify opportunities in which students could speak to a person from another culture or region of the world.” A charter school teacher shared that his school had lists of expert speakers (called Nespris) and a teacher from a culturally diverse school described how she had observed a teacher leveraging cultural and content expertise through her students’ networks. How to best utilize these experts was then negotiated by participants in discussion posts. Participants felt that experts could help students understand their content on a global scale and also give students practice engaging with people from different cultures in ways that “are respectful and celebratory of cultural differences.”

Overall, participants found transactional experiences with international partners the most challenging aspect to implement in their classrooms, and admittedly, we were also unable to include a coveted discussion with international partners during the graduate course. However, participants believed such interactions would be valuable in learning about different perspectives and practicing civil discourse.

6. Discussion

This mixed methods study examined self-report data of teachers’ globally competent teaching practices and perceptions. Quantitative data showed how and with what frequency participants infused global learning into their classrooms; qualitative findings reveal successes and challenges faced by participants when implementing globally competent teaching practices. This study contributes to the research literature the voices of teachers—voices needed for deeper conceptual understanding of translating global education theory to practice ( Kerkhoff, 2017 ).

6.1. Implications for research and practice

Quantitative analyses compared teachers from a business-as-usual graduate teaching course (controls) and teachers whose graduate course specifically infused global competence with its curriculum (focal group). Results revealed that, compared to controls, focal teachers practiced more globally competent teaching strategies in their K-12 classrooms at least once in the recent past (two weeks). Specifically, the following globally competent strategies were used with statistically greater frequency by focal teachers: guiding students to examine their own cultural identities, using texts written by global authors, and asking students to use primary sources when building claims. Across a semester, focal teachers reported building a repertoire of global-education resources with statistically greater frequency than did their control counterparts.

Based on our findings, we propose that exposure to globally competent teaching in teacher education relates to participants’ frequency of global teaching practices in K-12 classrooms. However, because we did not use pre and post paired t -tests, we are unable to infer that the relationship is causal. To ascertain if differences in globally competent teaching practices are caused by course integration of global learning, future studies should use TGRS to collect, pair, and analyze pre- and post- data in students from a globally-competent graduate teaching course and control group.

As a reflection tool for global teaching, TGRS may provide teachers with practical ideas to implement in their classrooms. According to our qualitative data, teachers found GTM a useful framework for translating theory into practice, reporting their ability to implement strategies immediately in their K-12 classrooms. In summary, qualitative data showed how participants implemented global learning by internationalizing existing culturally relevant pedagogical practices or by instituting desired pedagogies that opened a space for introducing global curriculum. Participants internationalized their curricula by infusing cultural understandings of content, teaching perspective-taking, and resisting Western-centric texts. Participants found entry points into global learning through their students’ cultural identities and international current events.

Quantitative data showed the following strategies were implemented in participants’ teaching at the end of the master’s course and with greater frequency than the controls: (a) using texts written by authors from diverse countries including primary sources, (b) reflecting on one's own assumptions and biases, (c) guiding students to examine their cultural identities, (d) discussing international current events, and (e) building a repertoire of resources related to global education. Analysis across quantitative and qualitative data suggests that providing information and examples on situated, integrated, and critical practices holds potential for influencing teachers’ globally competent teaching, but that teachers need more support in order to begin practices related to the transactional factor.

Qualitative results corroborate three well-documented barriers to implementing globally competent education: (a) lack of global resources, (b) mandated curriculum lacking in global competence, and (c) teaching tied to high-stakes tests that do not assess global competence ( Ferguson-Patrick et al., 2018 ; Kopish et al., 2019 ; Rapoport, 2010 ). In addition to the pressures to bring students to grade-level, cover a mandated and crowded curriculum, and ensure students pass high-stakes tests, our participants also felt a tension between the preparation they received from a culturally relevant lens that focused on the local and their perception that globally competent teaching focused solely on the global. The course provided a space to study culturally relevant pedagogy and global teaching side-by-side. Through course readings and discussions, participants were able to negotiate the local-global tension and conclude that many of their local communities were globally interconnected and that the model connected the local with the global rather than separating the two into a false dichotomy. Recognizing opposition to global education as problematic, most participants expressed desire to implement global competence into their teaching practices but needed to learn pedagogical moves that they can employ in K-12 classrooms.

Data from this study reveal the importance of educating teachers on how to enact global competence in K-12 classrooms, corroborating Reimer and McLean finding that teachers need a nuanced understanding of global education situated within classroom contexts ( 2009 ) and providing support for the application of the GTM as a framework for implementing global teaching practices. After extensive review of the literature, Yemini et al. (2019) concluded that there is a “need for comprehensive, dynamic frameworks for [global education in] teacher education to encompass… emerging trends in the literature ([e.g.] …the use of ICTs [information and communication technologies] and political changes)” (p. 88). The GTM includes both ICTs (in the transactional factor) and political relationships (in the critical factor), filling the need assessed by Yemini and colleagues.

6.2. Continued validation of the global teaching model

Validation of psychometric instruments and empirical models is a continuous process. Because of their theoretical importance, we added back to TGRS three items that did not load on the previous factor analysis. This study contributes both quantitative and qualitative support for keeping these three items ( texts by authors from diverse countries, guided students to examine their cultural identity, and reflect on my own assumptions and biases ). The results of this study indicate the four subscales, and the scale as a whole, are reliable according to a test of Cronbach’s alpha ( α = .89).

In the quantitative analysis, participants’ lowest-scoring factor was transactional experiences. This dimension requires experiential learning with different cultures, both face-to-face and through the use of ICTs. In the qualitative analysis, this factor also did not appear frequently. A few participants found it difficult to implement interactions with diverse others and even had trouble remembering the factor’s name. While the word “transaction” was originally chosen to signify the trans formative experiences and socio-political action that are integral components of global learning, this meaning was not effectively transferred through the word “transactional.” In fact, this term has a negative connotation in some education leadership circles (see Bass, 1998 ).

By synthesizing the research literature, the theoretical framework, the Global Teaching Model ( Kerkhoff, 2017 ), and the results of this study, we renamed the fourth dimension and created Fig. 2 as a heuristic for global teaching that works to decolonize curricula and raise sociocultural consciousness.

The Global Teaching Model with four factors: situated, integrated, critical, and intercultural.

The fourth dimension is renamed intercultural collaboration for transformative action. Intercultural means an exchange between two cultures. Transformative implies that the action does not reinforce hegemony. During intercultural collaboration, students engage in egalitarian transactions of different perspectives in order to learn with diverse others ( Wahlström, 2014 ). Teachers, students, and partners work together to critically analyze global issues exposing how inequities occur and then advocate for equity. Students take action towards social justice in both their local and global communities and in solidarity with people who have historically been marginalized by globalization ( Apple, 2011 ; Choo, 2017 ; OöConnor & Zeichner, 2011 ).

Freire (1970) considered praxis, or action based on theory, to be an essential component of critical pedagogy. As O’Connor and Zeichner state, “Merely heightening students’ awareness of global problems without cultivating in them a sense of efficacy to take part in transformative action might in fact make students less likely to become empathetic citizens” ( 2011, p. 532 ). Empowering students to take action on global and sociocultural issues provides space for hope in the curriculum. Without transformative action, students may feel powerless against systematic oppression around the world. Because our data show that intercultural collaboration was difficult for teachers to implement, one implication of our study is that teacher education programs could leverage their university’s international partnerships to introduce teachers to potential partners.

7. Conclusion

Gorski (2008) and Hauerwas and Creamer (2018) warn that, even when global partners or issues are introduced in the classroom, more often than not, schools reinforce rather than dismantle existing hierarchies. Teacher education must not only explain the theoretical reasons why global education is important, but must also model how to implement decolonizing practices and consciousness-raising in ways that teachers can replicate in K-12 settings. Without decolonizing and consciousness-raising, global education may emulate colonial power structures of domination and oppression. It is therefore essential to bring critical theory to the forefront of globally competent teacher education.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Longview Foundation, US.

Appendix C Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the online version, at doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101629 .

Appendix A. 

Going Global Module 6 Instructional Plan

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KwL3hsNLcVQ9xPEiWvpODyaxcptLsIz-/view?usp=sharing

Appendix B. 

Interview protocol.

• 1) What kinds of knowledge and skills are important for being a globally competent person?
• 2) How did the global learning experiences in our course impact you personally?
• 3) Communicating ideas effectively with diverse audiences was an important learning outcome for the course. What aspects of the course contributed to your working towards this objective?
• 4) In what way has our course helped awaken, expand or strengthen your vision for education for all students? What new ideas do you have for promoting global communication and learning?
• 5) What recommendations do you have to enrich, improve or continue this global learning among future students who are taking education courses?
• 6) Do you think your pre- and post self-assessment on Teaching for Global Readiness was accurate? Explain why or why not.
• 7) Select at least two items in which you feel you made the most progress during this semester. What course experiences and class materials contributed to these changes and learning and why?
• 8) Select at least two items in which you feel like you didn’t make gains or that perhaps you need more work on. For each item reflect on: Why you feel you didn’t show growth in this area?

And any needed follow-up questions for clarification or further information.

Appendix C. Supplementary data

The following is Supplementary data to this article:

• Andreotti V. Postcolonial and post-critical ‘global citizenship education. In: Elliot G., Fourali C., Issler S., editors. Education and social change: Connecting local and global perspectives. Continuum; New York: 2010. pp. 238–250. [ Google Scholar ]
• Apple M.W. Global crises, social justice, and teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education. 2011; 62 (2):222–234. [ Google Scholar ]
• Asia Society . 2018. Mapping the nation. https://asiasociety.org/mapping-nation/missouri Retrieved on 2 July 2019 from. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bass B. Lawrence Erlbaum; Mahwah, NJ: 1998. Transformational leadership: Industrial, military and educational impact. [ Google Scholar ]
• Carano K.T. Global educators’ personal attribution of a global perspective. Journal of International Social Studies. 2013; 3 (1):4–18. [ Google Scholar ]
• Choo S. Global education and its tensions: case studies of two schools in Singapore and the United States. Asia Pacific Journal of Education. 2017; 27 (4):552–566. [ Google Scholar ]
• Creswell J.W., Plano Clark V.L., Gutmann M.L., Hanson W.E. Advanced mixed methods research designs. In: Tashhakkari A., Teddle C., editors. Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research. Sage; Thousand Oaks, CA: 2003. pp. 209–240. [ Google Scholar ]
• Delpit L. New Press; New York: 2006. Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom [eBook] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ferguson-Patrick K., Reynolds R., Macqueen S. Integrating curriculum: A case study of teaching Global Education. European Journal of Teacher Education. 2018; 41 (2):187–201. [ Google Scholar ]
• Freire P. Continuum.; New York: 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fujikane H. Approaches to global education in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan. International Review of Education. 2003; 49 :133–152. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gorski P.C. Good intentions are not enough: A decolonizing intercultural education. Intercultural Education. 2008; 19 (6):515–525. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hamilton M.L., Pinnegar S. On the threshold of a new century: Trustworthiness, integrity, and self-study in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education. 2000; 51 (3):234–240. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hauerwas L.B., Creamer M. Engaging with host schools to establish the reciprocity of an international teacher education partnership. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement. 2018; 22 (2):157–188. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hull G.A., Stornaiuolo A. Cosmopolitan literacies, social networks, and “proper distance”: Striving to understand in a global world. Curriculum Inquiry. 2014; 44 (1):15–44. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hulsey P. KMOV4; 2016. Leads nation in growing immigrant population. https://www.kmov.com/news/st-louis-leads-nation-in-growing-immigrant-population/article_7c67687f-e994-5eb5-a646-747b80cd35e4.html Sept 22 Retrieved on 2 July 2019 from. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kerkhoff S. Addressing diversity in literacy instruction. Emerald; 2018. Teaching for global readiness: A model for locally situated and globally connected literacy instruction. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kerkhoff S.N. Designing global futures: A mixed methods study to develop and validate the teaching for global readiness scale. Teaching and Teacher Education. 2017; 65 :91–106. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kerkhoff S.N., Dimitrieska V., Woerner J., Alsup J. Global teaching in Indiana: A quantitative case study of K-12 public school teachers. Journal of Comparative Studies and International Education (JCSIE) 2019; 1 (1):5–31. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kopish M.A., Shahri B., Amira M. Developing globally competent teacher candidates through cross-cultural experiential learning. Journal of International Social Studies. 2019; 9 (2):3–34. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ladson-Billings G. Culture versus citizenship: The challenge of racialized citizenship in the United States. In: Banks J.A., editor. Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives. Jossey-Bass; San Francisco: 2004. pp. 96–126. [ Google Scholar ]
• Longview Foundation . 2008. Teacher preparation for the global age: The imperative for change. https://longviewfdn.org/programs/internationalizing-teacher-prep/ Retrieved on 2 July 2019 from. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mansilla V.B., Chua F.S. Educating for the 21st century. Springer; Singapore: 2017. Signature pedagogies in global competence education: Understanding quality teaching practice; pp. 93–115. [ Google Scholar ]
• Masemula M.B. Whose knowledge is transmitted through public education in Africa? In: Abdi A., Shultz L., Pillay T., editors. Decolonizing global citizenship education. Sense.; Rotterdam: 2015. pp. 173–178. [ Google Scholar ]
• Maxwell J.A., Loomis D.M. Mixed methods design: An alternative approach. In: Tashhakkari A., Teddle C., editors. Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research. Sage; Thousand Oaks, CA: 2003. pp. 241–272. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mikander P. Globalization as continuing colonialism: Critical global citizenship education in a global world. Journal of Social Studies Education Research. 2016; 15 (2):70–79. [ Google Scholar ]
• Myers J.P., Rivero K. Preparing globally competent preservice teachers: The development of content knowledge, disciplinary skills, and instructional design. Teaching and Teacher Education. 2019; 77 (1):214–225. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ndimande B.S. Unraveling the neocolonial epistemologies: Decolonizing research. Journal of Literacy Research. 2018; 50 (3):383–390. [ Google Scholar ]
• O’Connor K., Zeichner K. Preparing US teachers for critical global education. Globalisation Societies and Education. 2011; 9 (3-4):521–536. [ Google Scholar ]
• OECD and Asia Society . 2018. Teaching for global competence in a rapidly changing world. https://asiasociety.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/teaching-for-global-competence-in-arapidly-changing-world-edu.pdf Retrieved on 12 July 2019 from. [ Google Scholar ]
• Parkhouse H., Tichnor-Wagner A., Glazier J., Cain J.M. “You don’t have to travel the world:” accumulating experiences on the path toward globally competent teaching. Teaching Education. 2016; 27 (3):267–285. [ Google Scholar ]
• Pashby K. Demands on and of citizenship and schooling: ‘Belonging’ and ‘diversity’ in the global imperative. In: O’Sullivan M., Pashby K., editors. Citizenship education in the era of globalization: Canadian perspectives. Sense Publishers; Rotterdam, The Netherlands: 2008. [ Google Scholar ]
• Poole C., Russell W.B. Educating for global perspectives: A study of teacher preparation programs. Journal of Education. 2015; 195 (3):41–52. [ Google Scholar ]
• Quezada R.L., Cordeiro P.A. Internationalization in teacher education in the US: Innovative programs and practices to meet the global challenges of tomorrow’s schools. In: In Day C., Sachs J., editors. Quality and change in teacher education. Springer International Publishing; Switzerland: 2016. pp. 195–212. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rapoport A. We cannot teach what we do not know: Indiana teachers talk about global citizenship education. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. 2010; 5 (3):179–190. [ Google Scholar ]
• Reimer K., McLean L.R. Conceptual clarity and connections: Global education and teacher candidates. Canadian Journal of Education. 2009; 32 (4):903–926. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rizvi F., Lingard B. Routledge; 2009. Globalizing education policy. [ Google Scholar ]
• Suárez-Orozco M. Globalization, immigration, and education: The research agenda. Harvard Educational Review. 2001; 71 (3):345–366. [ Google Scholar ]
• Subedi B. Decolonizing the curriculum for global perspectives. Educational Theory. 2013; 63 (6):621–638. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ukpokodu O. Teacher preparation for global perspectives pedagogy. In: Subedi B., editor. Critical global perspectives: Rethinking knowledge about global societies. Information Age Publishing; Charlotte, N.C: 2010. pp. 121–142. [ Google Scholar ]
• US Census . 2017. Foreign born data table. https://www.census.gov/topics/population/foreign-born.html [ Google Scholar ]
• US DOE . 2018. Succeeding globally through international education and engagement. https://sites.ed.gov/international/files/2018/11/Succeeding-Globally-Through-International-Education-and-Engagement-Update-2018.pdf [ Google Scholar ]
• Wahlström N. Toward a conceptual framework for understanding cosmopolitanism on the ground. Curriculum Inquiry. 2014; 44 (1):113–132. [ Google Scholar ]
• West C. NAFSA; 2012. Toward globally competent pedagogy [PDF] http://www.nafsa.org/uploadedFiles/Chez_NAFSA/Find_Resources/Publications/Periodicals/Epublications/epub_toward_globally.pdf Retrieved on 2 July 2019 from. [ Google Scholar ]
• Yemini M., Tibbitts F., Goren H. Trends and caveats: Review of literature on global citizenship education in teacher training. Teaching and Teacher Education. 2019; 77 (1):77–89. [ Google Scholar ]
• Yin R.K. 5 th ed. Sage; Thousand Oaks, CA: 2014. Case study research: Design and methods. [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhao Y. Preparing globally competent teachers: A new imperative for teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education. 2010; 61 (5):422–431. [ Google Scholar ]
• Zong G. Developing preservice teachers’ global understanding through computer-mediated communication technology. Teaching and Teacher Education. 2009; 25 (5):617–625. [ Google Scholar ]

Teachers can change the world: Scaling quality teacher professional development

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, brad olsen and brad olsen senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @bradolsen_dc molly curtiss wyss molly curtiss wyss senior project manager and senior research analyst - global economy and development , center for universal education.

October 4, 2022

Millions of children recently began their new school year—some of them for the first time in three years—and their learning will be shaped by the 62 million teachers welcoming them. October 5 is UNESCO’s annual World Teachers’ Day and, so, teachers merit a closer look.

Research typically finds that teachers are the most important component of formal education, and quality instruction one of the biggest contributors to student learning . A 2018 World Bank report on global and regional assessments in Africa found that teacher knowledge, teaching practice, and instructional time were the “most consistent sources of impact on student learning.” Teachers often get to know—and become invested in—children and their families for months, sometimes years at a time and teachers’ efforts not only influence students’ academic achievement but also their long-term success and well-being .

We believe that teachers can change the world—and we hope to contribute to that indispensable goal.

Teachers are also costly. Teacher salaries and benefits comprise the largest line item in any government’s education budget: about 75  percent of the education budget in the U.S. and  55 to 75 percent in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In fact, most LMICs spend about 10 percent of their entire government budget on teachers.

Even though teachers are essential to education success and constitute large parts of public sector budgets, there is a shortage of qualified teachers and currently an exodus of teachers from the profession . UNESCO estimates that nearly 69 million additional teachers will need to be recruited by 2030 for primary and secondary education alone. In the United States, many districts are facing a critical teacher shortage this fall. Teacher preparedness is a further challenge. In sub-Saharan Africa, 35 percent of primary teachers and half of all secondary teachers do not meet minimum qualification requirements.

The reasons for the shortage and lack of preparedness are complicated and result from interconnected topics such as school conditions and teacher policies; status, recruitment, and demographics of teachers; retention challenges; and both preservice teacher preparation and in-service professional development contours. In many places, teaching is a low-paid profession and is treated as easy-in/easy-out, nontechnical work. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing strains on teachers and as a result many left or are considering leaving due to health fears, societal disrespect, a lack of professional autonomy, and the effects of burnout.

The importance of quality teacher professional development

We believe the two most pressing issues here are (1) recruiting, preparing, and retaining sufficient numbers of qualified teachers; and (2) improving the way education offers teachers continuing and effective professional development. That first issue is particularly complex and requires confronting intertwined realities such as the unfairly low status of teaching as a profession, frequently untenable work conditions, and the lack of promotion opportunities. These cannot be addressed without transforming whole education systems, which requires engaging with the complex combination of a country’s commitment to education, its overall financial health and donor relationships, its political economy, and various longstanding cultural and gender histories. The tasks can seem, frankly, overwhelming.

The second issue is slightly easier to undertake: the need to design and deliver high-quality teacher professional development (TPD) to all teachers in ways that allow them to grow and learn more, stay up-to-date, and succeed in their work of supporting children to learn and grow in the 21st century.

Increasing the knowledge and skills of teachers to prepare children to thrive is essential. Improving TPD at scale will improve teaching and learning for whole populations, keep effective teachers in the profession longer, and contribute to the success of the many promising education innovations currently being developed and implemented. Just about every education innovation—including those connected to ed tech, foundational literacy and numeracy, and socioemotional development—requires modifying and improving teacher practices. TPD also provides an important opportunity for focusing on equitable teaching and learning, inclusive instruction, and curricula that correspond directly to students’ lives and goals.

Yet, education reformers struggle to design and deliver TPD across regions or whole countries. Almost every partner that the Millions Learning project at the Center for Universal Education has collaborated with has faced challenges scaling teacher training within their broader education scaling efforts. Even when their initiatives are not primarily focused on teacher training, preparing and supporting teachers to deliver the initiatives at large scale and with impact carries challenges—including those related to capacity, affordability, equity, and sustainability. Given this, it is clear that educational improvement requires reckoning with how to scale TPD effectively, efficiently, and equitably.

Not as easy as it might sound

Over the past 20 years, the fields of teacher education and professional development have learned a lot, and small-scale teacher development efforts can be very good. However, this body of research, theories, and best practices has often not translated into quality, cost-effective TPD at large scale.

• What works at small scale does not automatically work at large scale. Identifying and training sufficient numbers of teacher instructors who are familiar with the local contexts and who can provide ongoing, in-person mentoring or coaching that fits the particular teacher’s situation is difficult, as is reaching large numbers of teachers in meaningful ways. Economies of scale can result in diluted effects.
• High-quality TPD is expensive . But cheap TPD’s effects often quickly fade or are washed out by the system. Quantity and quality often oppose each other. Hybrid models might offer one opportunity for striking this balance.
• Policymakers—especially at the national government and district levels—struggle to find good information on how to put evidence-based TPD into practice. It is too often assumed that any TPD program will automatically work, that teacher attendance equals teacher learning , or that delivering quality TPD is simple . In fact, none of those is true.
• It is tempting to assume technology will solve the challenges of scaling TPD, but technology “will not make a bad teacher professional development program better. The use of technology can, in fact, make TPD programs worse ,” such as when the technology frustrates or alienates the participants or excludes those without access or know-how.
• Common approaches to assessing TPD efforts are insufficient . Most large-scale TPD programs are currently evaluated by way of teacher attendance numbers, participant feedback surveys, or quick self-reports at the conclusion of the training, which result in a dearth of information on whether the training is having concrete, extended, positive effects on teachers and students. Conducting longitudinal, mixed-methods studies of TPD quality or the effects of different models is rarely incentivized.

How to move TPD forward?

Designing, adapting, and scaling quality TPD is not simple, but it is critical—and therefore an area on which we in Millions Learning have chosen to focus. Offering lasting, effective teacher development at scale requires knowledge of the particular teachers themselves and contemporary theories of adult learning, experimentation with innovative training models that include in-person coaching and project-based learning, and smart uses of technology. It also requires thoughtful research, meaningful partnerships among TPD groups and their government partners, and a long-term commitment.

We at Millions Learning look forward to embarking on just such a project in the coming months. There are many wonderful TPD efforts and teams out there and we wish to work with them, learn alongside them as they test out different scaling strategies, and support their ability to improve education by way of increased teacher quality, retention, and impact on our world’s students. We believe that teachers can change the world—and we hope to contribute to that indispensable goal.

Related Content

Molly Curtiss Wyss, Jenny Perlman Robinson

January 23, 2020

Molly Curtiss Wyss, Johannes F. Linn

July 14, 2021

Brad Olsen, Ghulam Omar Qargha

September 28, 2022

Global Education

Global Economy and Development

Center for Universal Education

Millions Learning

Larry Cooley, Jenny Perlman Robinson

March 8, 2024

The Brookings Institution, Washington DC

9:00 am - 5:00 pm EDT

February 21, 2024

Global Teacher

Education can form a personality and make the individual develop knowledge

How can education change the world?

Education can form a personality and make the individual develop knowledge. Through it, a person integrates into school activities, socializes, frees himself, communicates, and orients himself. And it is not only at school that we acquire education: different spheres of society, in general, can influence the individual in this sense.

To gain knowledge, one must follow a procedure – whether formal or not. Knowledge can be acquired through basic or applied research. Knowledge can also pass from one individual to another through communication.

All this cool. But how can knowledge change the world? How can he make people or groups influence the media in which they are inserted? This article has the answer!

How education changes the world

Education is a powerful weapon. Through it, a citizen becomes more critical, has more job opportunities, and improves their quality of life. The importance of learning for yourself is sharing your knowledge with others. Through this sharing, education acts directly on economic, social, and cultural development.

Without access to knowledge, we are unaware of rights, the environment, adequate working conditions, and respect. Find out now what quality education can do!

fight against poverty

The more you know, the more opportunities arise in the job market. A person who qualifies and specializes is more likely to get a job than someone who has not studied.

This happens in several countries: those who study earn more than those who are not literate. This impact is explicit in all grades of schooling. People who seek education can get out of poverty more easily.

It helps protect the environment

When individuals become more aware of the impacts of our activities on nature, it helps to preserve the environment. Education teaches people to decide sustainably and fulfill present duties without affecting future generations. A world educated correctly about nature and its impacts are more sustainable.

Alleviates violence

Social inequality is directly associated with the lack of quality education, which is directly related to the increase in violence. Education can reduce this inequality, overcome intolerance, and help society become less aggressive. Education is key to dealing with ignorance and fighting stereotypes.

It gives access to rights

Education allows people to know that they have rights guaranteed law and demand them. Through education, we learn about human rights and our essential freedoms.

Allows understanding of the world

The importance of understanding the world is for any human being. Education makes people more critical and aware, contributes to the country’s economic growth, and promotes social equality.

You may also like...

Educational Advisor – What is its importance?

The Value of Education

Education for social transformation

The importance of the teacher in the formation of students

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

How education reforms can support teachers around the world instead of undermining them

Professor of Educational Administration, Penn State

Disclosure statement

Gerald K. LeTendre has received funding from the Fulbright Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and the U.S. Dept. of Education to conduct research on various aspects of teachers' work.

Penn State provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US.

View all partners

World Teachers’ Day , held on October 5 each year since 1994, is an annual event to reflect on the progress teachers have made.

But in many countries, including the United States, the professional status of teachers has declined in the last decade.

For example, studies in Britain , Japan and Hong Kong show an erosion of teacher autonomy and public confidence in teachers, which leads to teachers feeling disempowered and demoralized. Job satisfaction has also deteriorated among teachers in the U.S., where teacher education itself has become a target of policymakers who think it requires higher standards and greater state control.

As a researcher who studies teacher reform initiatives around the world , I have seen very few reforms do what they were designed to do , which is to improve the quality of teachers’ work and their professional standing.

With colleagues in the U.S., Sweden and South Korea, I researched teacher-focused policies in four Nordic countries (Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark) and four East Asian countries (Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and South Korea) from 1995 to 2020.

All eight countries are stable, wealthy democracies whose school systems are generally regarded as having solid – even exemplary – educational systems. In other words, one might not expect them to be that worried about their teachers. Yet over the 25-year period that we studied, these countries collectively passed 56 national policies that were specifically aimed at reforming some part of teacher career development, education or training.

Sweden was the most active with 12 reforms, while Finland passed only two.

Sometimes these reforms didn’t really help teachers. In fact, some reforms actually undermined the quality of the national teaching force.

Here is what we found is mostly likely to work when it comes to new teacher policies.

Make policies comprehensive

Comprehensive teacher policies address at least three key areas: recruitment and training, hiring and placement, and professional development. This is crucial in addressing significant problems like teacher shortages, where focusing on recruiting and training alone has not worked, at least in the U.S.

However, most of the eight countries in our study passed polices that target only one of these stages. Some nations addressed more than one, but the reforms were often uncoordinated. And, these nations were also influenced by international organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development , resulting in contradictory reforms that undermined the effectiveness of national systems .

Denmark was the only nation that specifically targeted recruitment by trying to recruit teachers from the best college graduates. Sweden was the only country to pass a policy vaguely related to teacher placement. They started “fast track” programs that prepare immigrants with teacher qualifications to teach in Swedish schools. These programs were spread around the country in six universities that would encourage placing the graduates outside the Stockholm area.

Instead, countries concentrated on policies that set standards for teacher certification, improved work conditions and extended opportunities for professional development. While these are important areas, they don’t address crucial bottlenecks in recruitment and distribution. Simply setting standards does not guarantee that qualified teachers will be available where they are needed. For example, due to shortages in certain subjects, teachers are often assigned to teach courses that they are not qualified to teach – something called “out-of-field” teaching .

Despite all the teacher-focused reforms that have occurred, access to qualified teachers remains a major source of educational inequality in the world today.

Focus on teachers’ actual needs

There is international consensus that effective teacher education and development involves offering teachers multiple opportunities to practice and reflect on actual teaching practices. This means professional development should be integrated into local schools where local practitioners can identify the problems they face while working with experts to identify solutions. Yet few of the policies we analyzed indicated this as a goal.

One example that did engage teachers was the OSAAVA program in Finland, which supported projects where teachers and schools could identify what expertise they already had available, areas that needed more professional development and how to sustain this professional development over time.

In addition to being focused on actual problems, good professional development supports collaboration between teachers, universities and the communities where they work. In most industries, professional development is created by expert practitioners in the field. Teacher professional development, however, is mostly created by academics in universities . To achieve effective professional development often requires reforming the relationship between universities and schools.

Include teachers in the process

In both Nordic and East Asian countries, governments often passed reforms related to teacher professional development by setting standards, but few governments involved teachers in the process. This undermines teachers’ professional status and autonomy. It also means that the professional development is less likely to meet teachers’ needs.

In Japan, in the early 2000s, the government took what was once a teacher-led form of professional development, Lesson Study , and integrated it into required professional development. This weakened the collaboration which research had shown to be essential for effective teacher learning . In 2017, I conducted interviews with teacher educators who complained about the long-term decline in Lesson Study quality. Indeed, the Lesson Study sessions I observed in 2017 were less well attended and lacked the collaborative support that I had witnessed while researching Japanese schools in the 1980s and 1990s.

In contrast, the “ Teach Less, Learn More ” reform passed in Singapore in 2005 allowed schools to hire more staff so that teachers had more time to study how to better present lessons or to review and redesign the curriculum.

Why it matters

Decades of scientific research confirm that quality teachers improve student achievement . At the same time we see the rise of authoritarian regimes and anti-democratic movements across the globe. Education has a democratizing effect , particularly in poor countries. I believe that, now more than ever, every nation must support teachers as they provide the education and critical thinking skills that children will need to confront antidemocratic sentiment and resolve the significant problems of the future.

[ Over 110,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world. Sign up today .]

• Teacher training
• Global education
• Education reforms
• Teacher shortage
• Teacher professional development

Research Fellow in Tropical Climate Variability

Director, Defence and Security

Opportunities with the new CIEHF

School of Social Sciences – Public Policy and International Relations opportunities

Deputy Editor - Technology

Transforming lives through education

Transforming education to change our world

UNESCO provides global and regional leadership on all aspects of education from pre-school to higher education and throughout life. It works through its Member States and brings together governments, the private sector and civil society to strengthen education systems worldwide in order to deliver quality education for all. As a thought leader it publishes landmark reports and data for policy-makers, implements programmes on the ground from teacher training to emergency responses and establishes and monitors norms and standards for all to guide educational developments.  

Right to education in a ruined world

Southern Italy, 1950. Three children are huddled around a makeshift desk made out of reclaimed wood, scribbling in their notebooks. The classroom has an earthen floor and roughly clad walls. The children’s clothes are ragged. They are wearing home-made slippers because shoes and the money to buy them are rare commodities in the war-ravaged south. 

Although World War II ended five years earlier, the scars of conflict are still visible in this black and white photo from a report commissioned by UNESCO from legendary photojournalist David Seymour. 

At the time when the photograph was taken, less than half of Italy’s population could read and write and just a third completed primary school. 70 years later, these children’s grandchildren enjoy an over 99% literacy rate. In the wake of the war, UNESCO led a major education campaign in Europe to respond to the education crisis, to rebuild links between people and to strengthen democracy and cultural identities after years of conflict. The emphasis then was on the fundamental learning skill of literacy.  

Immediately after World War two UNESCO led a major education campaign in Europe to respond to the education crisis, fix and rebuild links between people and strengthen cultural identities after years of conflict. David Seymour’s images show the extent of the fight against illiteracy led by the post-war Italian government and non-governmental organisations backed by UNESCO. 

Looking back at the deprived surroundings Seymour captured in his photo essay, one can see the extent of success. Seventy-one years later, those children’s grandchildren enjoy a 99.16 per cent literacy rate. 

Similar programmes were held across the globe, for instance in devastated Korea where UNESCO led a major education textbook production programme in the 1950s. Several decades after, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Korean citizen Ban Ki-Moon expressed the importance of such a programme for the country's development: 

The flowering of literacy

In a Korea devastated by war and where UNESCO led a major education textbook production programme in the 1950s, one student, Ban Ki-Moon, now Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, saw the world open up to him through the pages of a UNESCO textbook. Several decades after, he expressed the importance of such a programme for his country's development on the world stage.

Reaching the remote villages perched atop the Andes in Peru during the early 1960s wasn’t without its challenges for UNESCO’s technical assistance programme to bring literacy to disadvantaged communities. While Peru’s economy was experiencing a prolonged period of expansion, not all Peruvians were able to benefit from this growth which was limited to the industrialised coast. Instead, Andes communities were grappling with poverty, illiteracy and depopulation. 

Today, the number of non-literate youths and adults around the world has decreased dramatically, while the global literacy rate for young people aged 15-24 years has reached 92 %. These astonishing successes reflect improved access to schooling for younger generations.

Photojournalist Paul Almasy has left us the poignant image of a barefoot older man while he’s deciphering a newspaper thanks to his newfound literacy skills.

The classroom at the UNESCO mission in Chinchera, in the Andean highlands of Peru, had allowed the old man to discover the world beyond his tiny village.

However, there are still huge obstacles to overcome. Data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics shows that 617 million children and adolescents worldwide are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. Since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 it is still the case that globally more than 450 million children - six out of 10 - have failed to gain basic literacy skills by the age of 10. And beyond literacy programmes, massive investments in skills for work and life, teacher training, and education policies are needed in a world that is changing ever faster. 

Global priorities

Africa, home to the world’s youngest population, is not on track to achieve the targets of SDG 4. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is expected to account for 25% of the school-age population by 2030, up from 12% in 1990, yet it remains the region with the highest out-of-school rates. Girls are more likely to be permanently excluded from education than boys. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated inequalities, with 89% of learners not having access to computers and 82% lacking internet access to benefit from distance learning. The lack of trained teachers further jeopardizes progress towards SDG4: pre-pandemic only 64% of whom were trained at the primary level and 58% at the lower secondary level.

As part of its Priority Africa Flagship 2022 – 2029 , UNESCO has launched Campus Africa: Reinforcing Higher Education in Africa with the objective to build integrated, inclusive, and quality tertiary education systems and institutions, for the development of inclusive and equitable societies on the continent.

Gender    

There are immense gender gaps when it comes to access, learning achievement and education, most often at the expense of girls and women. It is estimated that some 127 million girls are out of school around the world. For many girls and women around the world, the classroom remains an elusive, often forbidden space. UNESCO monitors the educational rights of girls and women around the world and shares information on the legal progress toward securing the right to education for women in all countries. Despite important progress in recent decades, the right to education is still far from being a reality for many girls and women. Discriminatory practices stand in the way of girls and women fully exercising their right to participate in, complete, and benefit from education. And while girls have difficulty with access, boys face increasing challenges, and particularly disengagement , from education at later stages. Globally only 88 men are enrolled in tertiary education for every 100 women. In 73 countries, fewer boys than girls are enrolled in upper-secondary education.

UNESCO's Her Atlas analyzes the legal frameworks of nearly 200 states to track which laws are enabling---or inhibiting---the right to education for girls and women. This interactive world map uses a color-coded scoring system to monitor 12 indicators of legal progress towards gender equality in the right to education.

Monitoring the right to education for girls and women

What makes me proud is that soon I will finish building a new house. I have already been able to buy a cow and I will soon be able to have another pond

Madagascar’s coastal Atsinanana region is known for its lush rainforests and fish breeding.

The country has a young population, but only one out of three children can complete primary education. Among those who are able to finish primary school, only 17% have minimum reading skills, while just a fifth of them have basic maths competencies. Once they leave school, children face a precarious labour market and unstable jobs, just like their parents.

Natacha Obienne is only 21 years old, but she is already in charge of a small fish farm, a career that is usually pursued by men. As one of the many out-of-school women in her area, she was able to set up her own business after vocational training taught her the basics of financial management and entrepreneurship, as well as the practicalities of breeding fish.

She understood that fish feeding depends on the temperature of the water. If it’s well managed, a higher number of fish is produced. ‘I immediately applied everything I learnt’ she says.

The classroom she attended changed the course of her life and she hopes other young people will follow in her footsteps.

I no longer depend on my parents and I am financially independent

She’s not alone. Around 3,000 youths in Madagascar have been trained since the start of the UNESCO-backed programme, some of whom have set up their own business and achieved financial independence. Education was the best way to ease people's emancipation.

Like Emma Claudia, 25, who after her vocational training started a restaurant with just a baking tray and a saucepan.

What does my family think? They are surprised and amazed by my evolution because I haven’t been able to complete my studies. I don’t have any school diplomas.

While Natacha and Emma Claudia have been able to transform their world through education, millions of children out of school around the world are still denied that dream.

Discrimination against girls remains widespread and nearly one billion adults, mostly women, are illiterate. The lack of qualified teachers and learning materials continues to be the reality in too many schools.

Challenging these obstacles is getting harder as the world grapples with the acceleration of climate change, the emergence of digitization and artificial intelligence, and the increasing exclusion and uncertainty brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

We resumed school a while ago and it’s been stressful. We are trying to retrieve what we lost during quarantine, the worst thing about not being in school is the number of things you miss. Learning behind a screen and learning in person are incomparable.

Aicha is lucky to be able to continue her education. Her country has the highest rate of out-of-school children in the world – 10.5 million – and nearly two-thirds are women. To compound the problem, Nigeria’s northern states suffer from the violence that targets education.

In Russia, too, Alexander and his school friends had to cope with virtual learning and the lack of interactions.

All Russian students were moved to online studying. Needless to say, it was a rough year for all of us, several friends were struggling with depressive moods. They were missing their friends and teachers. So did I.

To protect their right to education during this unprecedented disruption and beyond, UNESCO has launched the Global Education Coalition , a platform for collaboration and exchange that brings together more than 175 countries from the UN family, civil society, academia and the private sector to ensure that learning never stops.

Building skills where they are most needed

Crouched over a pedal-powered sewing machine, Harikala Buda looks younger than her 30 years. Her slim fingers fold a cut of turquoise brocade before deftly pushing it under the needle mechanism.

Harikala lives in rural Nepal, where many villagers, particularly women, don’t have access to basic education. Women like Harikala rely on local community UNESCO-supported learning centres to receive literacy and tailoring skills. In a country where 32% of people over 15 are illiterate, particularly women and those living in rural areas, education is the only route to becoming self-reliant.

I have saved a small amount. My husband’s income goes towards running the house, mine is saved. We must save today to secure our children’s future

Having access to a classroom is the first step to creating a better world for the student, the student’s children and the student’s community. This is a lesson that matters a lot to

Kalasha Khadka Khatri, a 30-year-old Nepali mother. She grew up in a family of 21, with no option to go to school. Two of her children didn’t survive infancy because she was unable to pay for medical treatment. After acquiring sewing skills at her local community learning centre, Kalasha can now provide for her family.

Harikala and Kalasha were able to learn their skills through the support of the UNESCO’s Capacity Development for Education Programme (CapED), an initiative that operates in some 26 least-developed and fragile countries. 

Reimagining the future of education

As the world slowly recovers after the COVID-19 crisis, 244 million children and youth worldwide are still out of school. And a 2022 survey by UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank and OECD finds that one quarter of countries have yet to collect information on children who have and have not returned to school since the pandemic started.

Rebuilding how and where we learn requires policy advice, stronger education legislation, funds mobilisation, advocacy, targeted programme implementation based on sound analysis, statistics and global information sharing. Quality education also calls for the teaching of skills far beyond literacy and maths, including critical thinking against fake news in the digital era, living in harmony with nature and the ethics of artificial intelligence, to name a few of the critical skills needed in the 21st century. 

UNESCO  captured the debate around the futures of education in its landmark report from 2022 entitled Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education.

The Transformative Education Summit , that took place during the United Nations General Assembly in September 2022, as well as the Pre-Summit hosted by UNESCO to forge new approaches to education after the COVID-19 crisis, address the toughest bottlenecks to achieving SDG 4 and inspire young people to lead a global movement for education. World leaders committed to put education at the top of the political agenda. UNESCO has been mobilizing and consulting all stakeholders and partners to galvanize the transformation of every aspect of learning. UNESCO launched a number of key initiatives such as expanding public digital learning, making education responsive to the climate and environmental emergency, and improving access for crisis-affected children and youth.

The two children sitting at their makeshift desk in Italy in 1950 could not have imagined what a modern learning space might look like or how a modern curriculum or the tools and teacher training to deliver it might have been thought out and shaped to offer them the most from education. They could not have imagined the global drive to ensure that everyone was given a chance to learn throughout life. The only thing that has not changed since the photo was taken is the fact that education remains a fundamental and universal human right that can change the course of a life. To the millions still living in conditions of poverty, exclusion displacement and violence it opens a door to a better future.

Explore all the work and expertise of UNESCO in education

Related items.

HUGH CULVER

Author, speaker, coach, how to change the world by teaching.

Updated to Business , Speaking on January 23, 2023.

Picture this —

I’m asked to put together a 2-day workshop for company owners.

I was in graduate school and had no idea how to create (let alone teach) a 2-day workshop.

So, of course, I said “Yes!”

That was the beginning of a 25-year journey as a public speaker.

Fast forward to 2017 and I’m about to open the doors to my 3rd annual BOSS (Business Of Speaking) program. This is the one time each year I teach people, like you, how to build their own business of speaking.

Rather than this post being only about keynote speaking, on the main stage, I want to promote building the skills of a teacher . Here’s why…

Teachers change the world

All great communicators are teachers – from as far back as Plato teaching young Aristotle (who went on to teach Alexander the Great), to current world leaders explaining the state of affairs. Teaching is how we help people understand the need to change and how to make change happen .

This can happen on a convention main stage, in the classroom, with your team, or over a latté with a friend. If you can teach, you can influence change.

My first experience teaching happened on the shores of the Fraser River, in British Columbia, teaching tourists how to tie up a life jacket and hang on in rapids. Pretty simple efforts, but I got a taste for the power of a lesson well taught (and what can happen when the lesson doesn’t stick).

I later graduated to teaching my employees and contract staff, leading workshops and, eventually, speaking on the main stage.

Universal language

Teaching is the universal language for taking complex problems and boiling them down to relevant solutions. Some of your decisions today are based on lessons learned – maybe even decades before.

The better you get at teaching, the more valuable you become. This is true not just in monetary terms, but because you are the catalyst for change – one student at a time.

At the existential level, we often teach what we most need to learn. It’s why David Allen got into time management, Tony Robbins does motivation, and I teach about productivity.

And the ride is not always a smooth road.

The skin of a rhino

If you’ve ever been tasked with teaching an audience – even your own team – it can be a daunting task. You have to organize material, design delivery, add (hopefully) some interactive parts to keep it interesting and then (as if that wasn’t enough) figure out how to make any of this stick beyond 15 minutes after they walk out the door.

In an effort to engage my audience with open-ended questions, I’ve suffered many moments, balancing on one foot, and then the other, waiting for a blank-faced audience to respond.

Within one 10 minute span, teaching can flip from the greatest job in the world, to feel like you’re scraping off wallpaper with a dull spoon.

In fact, any teacher worth their salt has earned the skin of a rhino, wisdom of an owl and patience of a lion.

Once you’ve had a tough audience you quickly realize you can’t take all feedback personally – sometimes, the chemistry isn’t there.

Surviving a tough audience

Last year I was booked to speak to an audience of bus drivers. Now, I don’t remember writing “bus drivers” as a target market, but the event was local, at the last minute their speaker had cancelled, so I agreed to deliver the 2-hour workshop.

In my preparation, I’d learned renegotiations between the union and school district were stalled and some drivers were facing lay-offs. If that wasn’t enough, the venue was a school gymnasium with the audience in the bleachers.

It didn’t start well – not only did most arrive 10 minutes late, but as they climbed the bleachers they casually stepped over my (oh-so-smart) temporary rope barricade so they could sit as far away from me as possible.

I felt my career had just taken a step back 10 years.

Like a good soldier, I did my best, stuck to the material, and finished on time. Sure, I got some compliments – some even told me how my course would help them through this tough time.

The icing on the cake came from one disgruntled participant with a comment scrawled at the bottom of their feedback form (Yes, some clients still insists on ‘smile sheets’) – “I will never get this time back.”

The skills of a teacher

I could fill volumes about leading meetings and seminars (in fact, see below for related posts), but here are 3 skills I know are universal:

1.  Make them work

Maybe it’s counter-intuitive, but folks get more out of your workshop when they make some of the decisions and do some of the heavy lifting. Even making them come to the front of the room to pick up handouts (hat tip to Bob Pike) gets them involved. This post has 7 pretty easy techniques that will get you 100% participation. The audience will learn more and you’ll look like a rock star with the event planner.

2. Anchor lessons

People have a tiny attention span – even worse memories . When you “anchor” a lesson, you attach the message to a story, metaphor or activity that helps create a neural imprint that can be recalled much more readily than just the words. I explain my SLAP technique in this post .

3. Take the punches

When feedback isn’t glowing (trust me, it happens to everyone), the trick is to look for the gems and make small improvements. You can’t meet everyone’s expectations, but you should be getting closer over time.

And when you get a compliment (hopefully more often than not) always ask what’s the one thing they’re going to use . Compliments are nice – learning what worked is far more valuable.

More posts on teaching

Here are a few more posts on teaching, memory and engaging your audience:

• Here’s a post about creating an online course .
• In this post I promote taking your knowledge, experience and content and turning it into an online course .
• This post describes 7 common mistakes (including: doing all the work, boring delivery, and too much content) trainers make in seminars, and what to do instead. Just for you, I’ve made all these mistakes (over and over) and now I’m suggesting a better plan.
• The SLAP technique to make your lessons sticky . I use this with every speech.
• In this post I describe in detail how to set up and deliver a dyad .

Related Posts

Like a Rube Goldberg machine, insert any problem into the downward spiral – eating, exercise, sleep, sales, conflict, writing, etc. – and it will predictably spit out the same result. Nothing changes.

But, it gets worse—when we repeatedly feed the downward spiral we also fuel the rivers in our mind.

Rivers in our mind

As a kid, I grew up kayaking wild rivers . When you’re strapped into a sliver of fiberglass with nothing but a paddle for steering you quickly learn that other than small changes in direction, you are going with the flow. 

Our mind is like a massive complex of rivers. Each stream is gradually carved from a single idea into a pattern of thinking over years of programming. We all have streams for health – should I eat this, or not? – dealing with (or not) conflict, planning, decision making, and, of course, self-perception – what we think about this amazingly complicated person we have become. 

Just like a river, every time you think, “I’m always doing this!” that stream gets carved just a little deeper. Keep repeating the same thought and pretty soon it becomes your reality. 

Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb famously simplified this highly complex phenomenon into one tidy formula “Neurons that fire together wire together.”

And because your mind is a glutton for resources – the brain constitutes about 2% of our body weight, but consumes some 20% of body energy – it takes shortcuts, or what author and filmmaker, Robert Fritz coined as the path of least resistance . 

If someone cuts you off in traffic, instead of rationally considering whether they simply didn’t see you, or maybe they just got bad news about a family member, we open the dam on our conflict stream and are flooded with feelings of anger.

The good news is there is another, more resourceful approach – the flywheel.

The Flywheel

The flywheel is like a Swiss army knife of progress—it’s adaptable for any situation, incredibly effective, and always available. 

And it starts with a question.

Life will always deliver a full menu of challenges. You can’t eat them all so you have to decide if this is a battle worth fighting. The question I ask is: “What is the cost?”

What is the cost if I choose to tackle this? Will this chew up a lot of my emotional reserves or derail me from the path I was on?

What is the cost if don’t deal with this? After all, there are lots of problems, like bad service at a restaurant, or a team member missing a deadline I can choose to ignore or deal with later. 

When you approach gaps in life with curiosity, it’s like kicking your heel at the side of the river and opening a tiny new stream. Kick often enough and the tiny stream gains volume. Repeat this new way of thinking often enough and your life changes.

If I’ve made the decision to tackle a problem, I need to next ask: what does ‘better’ look like?

Transforming a problem – especially a well-entrenched one – into a perfect solution isn’t always possible. But, making strides towards ‘better’ often is. 

For the executive who is constantly interrupted, ‘better’ is time blocking. By scheduling half-hour or longer time blocks, she protects time for deep work. Just like a meeting, the blocked time is in her calendar, visible to anyone, and respected. 

With a view of what ‘better’ looks like, it’s time to zoom in on a small win.

A small win is any step forward that gets you closer to closing your gap. By asking “What small win can I create right now?” I move from worry and stress into a proactive, creative state where I am looking for some small – even imperfect – effect I can make in just a few minutes.

A 10-minute walk in the morning is a small win towards getting back into an exercise habit. It’s not necessarily the perfect, ultimate solution, but it is progress.

On my Flight Plan this week was the task of setting up a meeting with a volunteer team I’m leading. The topics are complicated the decisions are difficult and I wasn’t even sure who needed to be in the meeting. I needed a small win , so I quickly drafted the agenda. I still need to book the meeting and send the invitations, but now the flywheel is turning and I have progress.  

If I forget about a scheduled meeting I can either beat myself up (downward spiral) or create a small win (flywheel) by sending a quick apology email and asking to reschedule.

If I miss a workout at the gym or a morning walk with my dog I can either dive into a pool of self-pity full of negative thoughts (downward spiral) or create a small win (flywheel) by going for a short walk later in the day.

That’s progress.

Life is full of problems. It’s up to us what we do with them. 

We can either stoke the fires of helplessness, convincing ourselves the problem is permanent or throw a bucket full of curiosity on it and seek a small win.

Start by being aware of the gaps in your work, health, relationships, or planning. We can’t win every battle, so choose your battles carefully. Next, ask yourself what would ‘better’ – not perfect – look like. Remember the goal is small wins in the run toward creating progress, not another big goal that could drop dead at the start line. 

And then take action.

It might be 10 minutes cleaning your desk, booking a long overdue meeting, finding a new walking route for some lunchtime exercise, or turning annoying app notifications off.

Progress happens when the flywheel of change has momentum. To get the flywheel spinning give it a nudge. I call that a small win.

If this was helpful, you might also like my pick of related posts:

How to get started on your goals with small wins How to stop procrastinating in 3 simple steps The magic of boring routines

End procrastination. Start taking action.

Get your FREE 30-page guide now.

• The Spiral and the Flywheel
• The magic of boring routines
• How to get started on your goals with small wins
• Goodbye 2023
• I am a volunteer
• My cartoons are (yikes!) online.

• Our Mission

Empowering Students to Change the World

By creating real-world projects with visible and positive outcomes, you can immerse your students in learning 21st-century skills while developing their sense of altruism.

The evening is warm and humid. People of all ages and backgrounds stretch along the local park as bluesy rock music thumps the air, played passionately by a group of students. Nearly everyone is wearing a "Spread Positivity" t-shirt. Free popsicles are passed around. A collection jar is stuffed with change. It's a free concert put on by students for the entire town in an effort to create something positive. The project will go on to raise hundreds of dollars for our school's future "positivity projects."

The "Spread Positivity Project" is among the dozens of successful projects that I've seen and helped students create as a part of a unit on group problem solving. Students have collected and donated hundreds of shoes and clothing items for Third World countries and local causes. I've seen students create fundraising workouts for the Wounded Warriors Project. I've seen students raise thousands of dollars for a classmate who was re-diagnosed with cancer, and in the process spark what would become an inspiring non-profit, DC Strong, that now raises even more thousands of dollars for children battling cancer.

If an end goal of education is to create skilled, altruistic citizens, why wait until after a student's post-secondary training? Whether it's an after-school community service group, project-based unit, or team-building event, allowing students the time, support, and freedom to create a positivity project is a direct route to building better thinkers and doers. The process that I've used to help students change their world is something that just about any school or classroom can -- and should -- do. By creating real projects, students will be immersed in 21st-century skills while embodying altruism. Here's how to get started.

1. Grouping Matters

I've let students choose their own groups. I've also chosen them myself. However, creating groups that balance skill sets and interests is important. Balance personality types and backgrounds as much as possible to foster flexibility and open-mindedness. If students choose their own groups, provide a set of roles that must be undertaken within their group. After some prep time, students can go around the room "selling their skillsets" to others, forming groups more organically. The group size matters as well. I've found that 4-6 members is ideal for holding each student accountable to sharing and contributing.

2. Give Guided Freedom

Students value these projects because they get to own the project. Provide an open-ended topic like: "You have the next three weeks to make a positive impact, locally, nationally, or globally." The prompt is open enough to interpretation that it allows creative projects. The challenge is that some students are used to more structure, so guided freedom comes into play.

Check in with every group every day, offering tips and strategies to help them succeed. Provide a sample calendar for when each sub-task should occur. Help brainstorm networking opportunities. Guide students through paperwork requirements for fundraising and advertising. But do any and all of these things only if they request it and only after they try it on their own first. It's their project and their learning. Our role is to guide from the side.

3. Teach Creative Problem Solving

Creativity is a skill. Critical thinking is a skill. Both must be fostered and coached. Teach students to explicitly bounce back and forth between divergently creating ideas and then convergently narrowing down the best ideas. Show them the value of generating ideas independently first -- crazy ideas, ample ideas, related ideas -- and then sharing as a group. Every moment of the project can and should utilize both divergent and convergent thinking skills.

4. Teach Communication Skills

I am fortunate that these projects are a part of our interpersonal communications class, where communication is the goal. However, any time that students are working in groups, they must be coached on how to work in groups. One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming that students will learn how to work in a team simply because we place them in a team. Here are some of the many activities that can be used to help students develop both successful projects and collaboration and communication skills:

Meetings on video

The most powerful strategy is documenting student group meetings on video (preferably in a room separated from their peers). Students can then watch the videos to notice habits and recognize strengths and needs. They can tally their positive moments compared to their negative moments.

Fishbowl observations

Pair up groups so that one group engages in conversation as the other observes from the side. Give the observers guided prompts for offering suggestions and praise, such as:

• What is one thing that this group is doing well?
• What is one thing that could help this group become more successful?

Conflict resolution strategies

Teach students verbal sentence stems for voicing concerns (such as using an "I statement") or apologizing for errors.

Nonverbal strategies

It's never too late or too early for teaching students about the importance of facial expressions, hand gestures, vocal tone, or proximity.

Rapport status checks

Ask each student for an independent report on how he or she feels about the group process. Use these for individual check-ins and coaching students on communicating their needs maturely.

Make It About the Process

Many teachers are wary of group projects because of the assessment challenges. Fear not. With a little planning, a group service project can be one of the most practical and robust ways of assessing student growth. Assessment should be varied, timely, and specific. I use clear rubrics for assessing students in each of these ways:

• Self-evaluations
• Confidential evaluations of one another
• Reflections from videos of meetings
• A whole-group "task completion" evaluation
• Weekly evidence of individual contributions

Why wait for change to happen? Why wait for altruism to develop? Let your students create positivity now. You won't be disappointed -- and neither will our society.

In the comments below, please discuss how you've empowered your students to change the world.

Putting teachers’ well-being and empowerment at the center of learning recovery and acceleration

Elaine ding, ana teresa del toro mijares, ezequiel molina.

Last Wednesday , we celebrated 85 million teachers globally on World Teachers’ Day. This marked the first time since the onset of the pandemic that students and teachers in almost every corner of the globe are starting their academic year through a return to fully in-person instruction. Yet as they return to school, there is no return to normalcy.

The world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic and multiple other crises. Teachers and students are no exception. While we have an emerging picture of how students have been severely affected by the pandemic, far less attention has been given to an equally essential consideration— what about our teachers?

There is some evidence that teachers have experienced heightened stress and burnout. Last year with UNESCO and UNICEF, the World Bank called attention to the importance of ensuring teacher well-being in learning recovery efforts. For World Teachers’ Day 2022, we convened an exceptional group of education leaders to reflect on the experience and lessons so far with efforts to ensure teacher well-being, drawing on their perspectives—from the classroom, research, and policy. We would like to share four takeaways from the discussion on the importance of supporting teachers’ well-being and empowerment holistically in this critical period of building back better:

1. There will be no learning recovery without well prepared, appreciated, and empowered teachers

As Andreas Schleicher , Director for Education and Skills at the OECD, put it: “The most important predictor for learning loss was not the hours of homework you got or the access to technology, it was actually that student-teacher relationship.” Many teachers may have suffered trauma from pandemic-related issues, and they have experienced burnout from the stressful tasks of ensuring learning continuity during school closures and dealing with learning losses as schools reopened. More than ever, effective teachers are the single most important factor to ensure that students learn. Learning recovery is simply not possible without supporting teachers. “Teachers are students’ greatest resource. Not the building, not the computers,” said Keishia Thorpe , winner of the Global Teacher Prize 2021.

2. Teacher well-being depends not only on their working conditions but also their own sense of self-efficacy

Adequate remunerations and working conditions are of course key to teachers’ well-being. But teachers also need to feel effective and empowered in their job. Chris Henderson , Chair for Teachers in Crisis Contexts at the Inter-Agency for Education in Emergencies, described teacher well-being as “what a teacher is able to do, and what a teacher is free from. And particularly in crisis contexts, it’s their ability to teach effectively … where children and teachers themselves are contending with a high level of trauma and stress.” As school systems reopen for a new academic year, return-to-business as usual will not be sufficient. Teachers need to be well-prepared, supported, and empowered to recover learning losses in the context of more heterogeneous classrooms. Their sense of self-efficacy is as important as their actual readiness to tackle this challenge. Speaking from her experience as Program Leader for Human Development in East Asia at the World Bank, Tara Béteille remarked that even now: “In my conversations with ministries … the words I hear often are teacher professional development and teacher accountability. I don’t hear the word motivation that much.” Systematic investments to support teacher well-being, resilience, and feelings of self-efficacy are needed.

3. There are cost-effective, focused interventions to enhance teachers’ well-being .

There is a monumental task ahead to support the learning recovery efforts of the 1.6 billion schoolchildren who were shut out of schools globally at the height of the pandemic. Yet, the size of the task need not be paralyzing. Daniela Labra Cardero , Director of Atentamente , shared the experience of a program to support teachers in Mexico to strengthen their socio-emotional well-being and manage the stress and anxiety arising from the impacts of the pandemic in their lives. She said: “We cannot stop the challenges in life, but we help teachers have a broader perspective, connect to their purpose as educators.” She said that before the program, teachers felt unable to deal with the pandemic and post-pandemic challenges, but the program helped them feel “more excited, more reconnected, and more capable of dealing with what’s happening.” Focused programs like Atentamente can be important tools to improve teachers well-being that complement investments and policy reforms to make teaching an attractive profession, such as improving selection and deployment policies, and provision of effective teacher professional development .

4. Teachers’ well-being and their voice should be front and center of efforts to recover learning and build back resilient, equitable and effective education systems

For decades, many education systems have failed to appropriately attract, recruit, prepare, support, and motivate teachers throughout their careers. The pandemic has propelled teacher retention and motivation to a front-and-center issue. Eleonora Villegas-Reimers , Chair of the Teaching & Learning Department at Boston University, underscored that: “It was not that the pandemic created an issue of lack of respect to the teachers, or a need for stronger professional development, or paying more attention to teachers’ well-being. The pandemic … brought more in focus what was going on.” It is clearer now that a respectful social environment in which teachers are deeply respected and valued is necessary for education systems to work.

The design and implementation of learning recovery plans should actively seek and build in the perspectives of teachers. Teachers cannot be only seen as the subject of these policies—their perspectives are essential in the policy making process itself. “A lot of times these discussions are had without teachers … it’s really important that teachers get a space to really talk about these issues that we are experiencing firsthand,” Thorpe said. This will ensure that the impacts on teachers’ well-being, empowerment, and professional respect, are factored in and pave the way for the success of policies aimed at recovering and accelerating learning.

ICYMI: You can find the event recording on our YouTube channel and our social media platform. We want to hear your thoughts on how we can foster programs that best support teachers. Write to us to the World Bank Teachers Team at [email protected] !

Analyst, Education Global Practice

Lead Economist, Education

Consultant, World Bank Group

Senior Economist

Join the Conversation

• Share on mail
• comments added

‘I Probably Cried Every Night': The Truth About Supporting New Teachers

• Share article

The most common type of teacher in schools today is a new one.

The fact stands in stark contrast to the stereotypical image of a teacher—a graying Baby Boomer, Jaime Escalante , or Edna Krabappel from “The Simpsons.” Now, a “veteran” teacher often has spent fewer than five years at their school.

Classrooms are different spaces too. Cellphones and social media are a distraction; students have a lot of ground to make up in reading and math proficiency; mental health challenges have multiplied. The entry point to the profession has become much rougher.

New national data on the teaching profession, vivid reporting from classrooms, and resources to help support this essential profession. Explore the Exclusive Report .

Two examples show how that can play out for new teachers.

For most of her adult life, H., 30, worked on and off, towards a teaching degree. The whole journey from associate teaching degree through student-teaching, with breaks, took seven years and cost close to $60,000 in coursework and test fees.

A year into her hard-won teaching career, H. quit the profession.

“I wanted to quit as a student-teacher many times, but I didn’t because teaching was what I wanted to do my whole life. I thought it would be different in a real school. But it wasn’t,” said H., who requested to be identified by her first initial because, like the other four new teachers interviewed for this story, she worries about whether being named could impact her employment opportunities in the future.

The trouble began right away: H. said she was hired to teach kindergarten and 2nd grade three days before the school semester started and missed out on new-teacher orientation. She had no curriculum, and her class, while small, had lots of behavior and discipline problems she wasn’t equipped to meet.

“I would get advice about moving around the furniture or being firm. But there was no actual support,” said H., recalling a student who would knock over tables, and who was frequently suspended. “The school didn’t have a great way to deal with these behavioral issues.”

Like H., Chance Manzo got no “new teacher” orientation before launching into his teaching career in the 2022-23 school year. A former actor and bartender, Manzo decided to get his teaching degree at 39, after the pandemic ravaged the service industry. “I wanted a COVID-proof profession,” Manzo said.

He teaches at the PAEC Center, a special needs school in Maywood, Ill., which also acts as a hub for special needs students from neighboring districts. He, too, had a challenging start—but he’s keen to go down the path of special education. “I fell down the right hole,” he said.

Manzo said a mentor helped him learn how to grade student work, when lesson plans were due, and how to prepare Individualized Education Programs for students. But he also lacked support on what curriculum to teach, and tools like manipulatives and calculators for his classes.

“It was a lot of cobbling together of resources and information from other teachers. The administration is too busy trying to get more bodies through the door,” Manzo added.

The chances that all new teachers experience the same kind of chaotic first week is now slim, experts who study teachers say, and nothing has hit the profession quite as hard as the pandemic. But the common tensions of feeling overwhelmed and under-supported leave new teachers with the same choices as H. and Manzo: soldier on, or quit.

“There is often no clear, effective system when teachers walk in,” said Susan Moore Johnson, a professor at the Harvard School of Graduate Education and director of the The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers. “There has to be a schoolwide understanding of what its norms are.”

Rocky starts that don’t always get easier

School leaders are often well aware of the problem and grappling with constraints of their own.

“It’s a huge challenge to find teachers to come to a low-income co-op school. Teachers want to work in schools that can pay them more. Teacher burnout is very high,” said Inga Ezerins, the vice principal at PAEC, Manzo’s school, and a former teacher there. Already, two teachers who joined last year have quit PAEC.

There is a tight window of three days when a teacher joins, to get through all the training, which is focused on the district’s numerous testing requirements. Ezerins said she would like at least a week to train and orient new teachers to the realities of working in special education school, with a special focus on curriculum. She tries to take new teachers under her wing, but relies heavily on mentors—current teachers—to fulfill the training needs.

The level of support, Ezerins acknowledges, doesn’t match the pressures of a teacher’s job in her school.

The rough landing of teachers into the profession fuels a longstanding problem: hanging on to them. A significant number leave before hitting the 5-year mark, somewhere between 40 and 50 percent.

“The problem of teacher shortage isn’t that we’re making too few. We’re losing too many,” said Richard Ingersoll, a professor at Harvard University, who has studied teacher attrition trends over the last three decades. Ingersoll’s research also shows that this turnover disproportionately affects low-income schools and those with a higher percentage of students of color.

I will never forget my first day. Someone let me in, walked me to my classroom and three days later the kids showed up.

It can be hard to understand these numbers in context. Some data suggests that overall teacher turnover, as compared to that among new teachers, isn’t all that different from similarly situated professions , like nurses and social workers, although the pandemic led to an uptick in turnover.

There’s also the wrinkle that, over decades, the teacher population has boomed relative to the size of the student population, which is now beginning to shrink. Districts’ constant hunger to hire reflects, in part, the fact that they have created proportionally more teaching slots—sometimes in the form of instructional coaches and others who don’t directly supervise classrooms.

Still, districts’ reliance on new talent, coupled with a leaky pipeline, can weigh heavily on schools, exerting pressure on existing teachers who pick up the extra teaching load. Often, more senior teachers double up as mentors for newer teachers, a phenomenon further complicated by the fact that even so-called veteran teachers frequently have been in the system for fewer than five years.

New data from a nationally representative survey of nearly 1,500 teachers conducted by the EdWeek Research Center finds that teacher morale starts out slightly above neutral on a -100 to +100 scale for teachers with fewer than three years of experience—but then drops precipitously for teachers with three to nine years in the classroom, right about the time they’ve grown more effective on the job.

Teacher morale, on a -100 to +100 scale, by years of teaching

Just why that is is hard to interpret: Perhaps that’s the time at which secondary stress points, like a heavy administrative burden, become more apparent to teachers, or perhaps it’s as simple as the glow of a new job wearing off.

But what it does mean is that districts are trying to plug the gap at both ends of the creation-retention cycle.

Schools are also training grounds

Numerous “grow-your-own” programs encourage substitutes and paraprofessionals to teach full-time. Alternative programs help students obtain their degrees while they teach. Many states have even lifted restrictions on who can become teachers now—a four-year college degree is all it takes in some cases—or even less. With so many entry points into teaching, schools are onboarding new teachers with different levels of experience and expertise.

Manzo initially applied to his school to fulfill requirements for the second year of his master’s degree from National Louis University in Illinois, but landed himself a full-time job instead, 30 minutes into his interview.

“I will never forget my first day. Someone let me in, walked me to my classroom and three days later the kids showed up,” said Manzo.

Brianna Crabtree is a first-time principal at the Citizens Leadership Academy Southeast in Cleveland, a charter school that hired 23 teachers since the 2022-23 academic year. Half the new cohort has fewer than five years of experience; the least experienced teacher, just six months. Five teachers in this group have made a lateral entry into teaching, from careers in insurance and the military.

In response, Crabtree said she’s developed an intensive coaching model: two deans of instruction whose sole job is to coach new teachers. These deans observe new hires teach and hold 45-minute coaching sessions with each of them every week. In these sessions, new teachers practice different skills they need to pick up, like delivering a lesson in class, and the deans give them granular feedback on their style or content.

Each week, coaches focus on one action item with the new hires, like positive reinforcement for students who stay on task.

“We can’t throw everything at new teachers together. We expect them to improve 1 percent every week,” said Crabtree.

The training plan officially kicks off in the summer through an intensive three-week bootcamp. The charter network’s central office gives all new hires the curriculum they’re expected to teach and helps them get familiar with the state standards and learn classroom management strategies. From the fourth week on, the school takes over.

This coaching method has paid dividends, according to Crabtree, especially for new teachers who haven’t had any formal training: “It’s mind blowing to me is that our most successful teachers over the past two years have been our career changers.”

For part of the training, Crabtree stands in the back of classrooms to coach new hires, delivering tips and feedback directly to the teachers who wear an earpiece.

“I give them cues based on what I observe in their class. I tell them to stop, scan their class and see if they have everyone’s attention. The cueing process can build a habit. It’s sort of like a coach coaching their quarterback through different plays,” said Crabtree.

Mentorship is a continuum requiring planning

It takes time and effort to plan a support system like this that is sustainable. Schools have been told since forever about the importance of mentoring, but getting it done in a way that bears dividends is a much more difficult proposition.

H. struggled with her mentorship experience. While her mentor tried to help, even covered field trips for her, the mentor couldn’t really help H. with her disruptive classroom.

“Too many schools rely on the mentor thing. But in most cases, it’s not a formalized process. When it’s not planned, mentors can’t help new teachers with specific tactics, like how to talk with parents,” said Renee Gugel, an assistant professor of leadership studies at National Louis University in Chicago.

Crabtree says she also relies heavily on veteran teachers to guide new teachers. “It’s funny to call them veteran teachers because they’ve only been teaching five years. But I count on them to hold up standards and culture while the new teachers adjust. I worry about them burning out,” said Crabtree.

Mentors—existing teachers—must mentally prepare for the workload, and it’s the principal’s job to set expectations from the beginning. Elizabeth Brown had to hire a whole new staff when she was asked to lead Ocali Charter High School in Ocala, Fla., which opened in 2021. Her cohort is a mixed bag too—veteran teachers with over 28 years of teaching experience side by side with people completely new to the profession.

It’s funny to call them veteran teachers because they’ve only been teaching five years.

Brown has implemented a three-year beginner training program. Year two is the most critical for her: mentors work on specific challenges—disengaged students, new curriculum—with new teachers to hone their craft. Then, mentors will teach one period with that strategy; in a second period, both the mentor and new teacher teach it together, and then in a third period, the new teacher goes it alone, and gets feedback.

How long a new teacher stays is 100 percent dependent on their relationship with the mentor, Brown concludes. It’s a heavy lift for the mentors, who have their own classes to teach.

“I prepped them. I told them the work is going to be much harder than the money [you get]. I told them, if you can’t give the new teacher your full attention, don’t do it,” Brown said.

The Cleveland school district has helped Crabtree sweeten the deal for mentors temporarily. All the principals in her school district were given $50,000 to distribute as bonuses for high-quality teachers, and she directed it to those who put in extra time and effort to mentor new teachers—up to $3,000 apiece.

“Everyone loves a pizza party. But this truly let me compensate for their time, Crabtree said, adding: “We don’t know if we’ll have these funds next year.”

A millennial workforce needs different supports

On the other end of the spectrum, district officials like Marco Muñoz, in charge of employee retention at the Jefferson County school district in Louisville, Ky., are trying to prevent new teachers from slipping through the cracks, with what he calls a “whole person” approach.

“This goes beyond helping them with technical skills like classroom management. You must see them as human beings first,” Muñoz said. “Are people connecting with their job? Do they have a sense of belonging?

The unseen burden of H.’s role as a new teacher were the 12-hour days that stretched into her home life.

“I probably cried every night. I was doing all this extra work at home and before school and not getting paid for it,” H. said.

Mental health is a critical part of supporting this generation of teachers, said Muñoz. “There is a generational gap between new teachers and their school leaders. They need to avoid stereotyping millennial and Gen Z teachers ... they should focus on the strengths that this new generation of educators bring to the table,” he said.

Muñoz is part of a two-person retention team, and travels across the district to visit teachers and find out, firsthand, what they’re struggling with. The retention rates in the district took a plunge in the 2021-22 school year, when 430 teachers resigned. Muñoz and his team managed to stem the departures the following year, which fell to 371—a 14 percent decrease.

“The advantage of working in a district for close to two decades is that you know who to tap if a new teacher needs something,” Muñoz said. “I know who in their building can drop in for a quick chat.”

He’s aware of the creeping disillusionment that hits teachers after about the three-year mark. It’s normal to feel unfulfilled after a few years of teaching, he reassures them.

“With newer teachers, they don’t see the fruits of their labor immediately and it’s a problem if they want to see gratification soon,” he said. It helps to keep them focused on the goal of earning tenure, and the stability that comes with it.

And often, teachers are keen to explore growth opportunities like advanced degrees or licenseendorsements. In planning for the future, teachers realize there’s room to grow in the profession, and that the district, to some extent, can financially provide for it.

Manzo, for instance, sees a path in switching to school administration. “I want to bring issues from the classroom into decision-making spaces,” he said. “There isn’t enough of that.”

Muñoz has now directed his attention to a pilot program running in three schools with some of the lowest retention rates in the district—35 percent. Teachers in these schools are getting one-on-one mental health counseling on how to cope with the pressures of teaching. Separately, principals will be trained on how to nurture teachers and be more tuned into their teachers’ wellbeing.

To be faithful to this “whole person” approach to retention, Muñoz said it’s also important to realize when a teacher might need to take a pause. It’s not a common strategy to ask teachers to voluntarily step back into a temporary substitute’s role or take leave while they sort out mental health or familial issues, but it’s helped getting some teachers back full-time to the district, he said.

Stepping back is maybe what H. needed too, to gain a clearer perspective.

“I want to go back to teaching someday when my kid is old enough for preschool. But I’d have to know, in advance, what kind of support I’d be getting from the school,” she said. “I’m still scared of what happened.”

Before You Go...

Sign up for edweek update, edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

ChatGPT for Teachers

Trauma-informed practices in schools, teacher well-being, cultivating diversity, equity, & inclusion, integrating technology in the classroom, social-emotional development, covid-19 resources, invest in resilience: summer toolkit, civics & resilience, all toolkits, degree programs, trauma-informed professional development, teacher licensure & certification, how to become - career information, classroom management, instructional design, lifestyle & self-care, online higher ed teaching, current events, how teachers can increase the impact of essay writing for students.

As writing has become an integral part of all subject areas, teachers have assigned more essays across the curriculum. And, as you probably discovered when you read some of those essays, they can be incredibly boring for you to read and equally boring for the student to write. To ensure that writing across the curriculum becomes effective, teachers must work on increasing the impact of essay writing for students.

Authentic Writing

The first step you can take as a teacher to improve student writing is to provide students with authentic writing tasks. Essay writing is hardly the most authentic writing task as we rarely have times in our lives when we have to write essays. Instead, you should strive to assign writing tasks students will actually do later in their life.

Persuasive letters and emails, Power Point presentations and even blog posts present students with a more authentic writing task and one they could expect to do in the future. These formats also allow for more student innovation in writing styles resulting in more dynamic assignments students will actually want to write.

Ongoing Revision

Real writers see their work as a series of ongoing editing and revision. Even after a final draft is completed and submitted, writers still want to go back and make changes. Teaching students that writing is an ongoing, dynamic process not just something that ends when a paper is turned in will teach them much more about good writing than assignments with definite starts and finishes.

One way you can implement ongoing revision for your students is by conferencing with students, opportunities for peer feedback and allowing students to rewrite papers. You can also share your own writing, writing attempts and ongoing revisions of your professional writing to show students that revision is a large part of writing in the “real world.”

Respect Student Interests

Who says that teachers must always supply the writing prompt? No one, that’s who. Students should have the opportunity to create their own writing prompts based on their unique interests. They can certainly relate those interests back to the essential skill or understanding at the heart of a unit. By allowing students to choose a writing topic based on their interest, you will learn more about your students and receive more engaging essays than if you assign the topic for students.

Writing across the curriculum will continue to play an increasingly more important role in education. Our society, which relies so heavily on written mobile communication, demands that we all increase our writing skills. Making the essay writing experience more dynamic for students will help them attain those writing skills they need for the 21 st century.

You may also like to read

• 5 Ways to Exercise Essay Writing for Elementary Students
• Students Evaluating Teachers: What Educators Need to Know
• 7 Cooperative Math Games Teachers and Students Will Love
• How Teachers Can Impart the Benefits of Students Working in Groups
• Three Ways Preschool Teachers Can Use Elmo to Help Students Learn
• Creating Better Online Students: A Guide for Teachers

Categorized as: Tips for Teachers and Classroom Resources

• Certificates in Trauma-Informed Education and...
• Online & Campus Master's in Higher Education ...
• Alternative Teaching Certificates

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

• Your Health
• Treatments & Tests
• Health Inc.

Public Health

A leading mindfulness teacher shares insights to counter tech addiction and isolation.

Jon Kabat-Zinn is a leading researcher into the health effects of meditation. He developed the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction protocol in 1979. D Dipasupil/Getty Images hide caption

Jon Kabat-Zinn is a leading researcher into the health effects of meditation. He developed the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction protocol in 1979.

In 1979, a report from the Surgeon General inspired Jon Kabat-Zinn to action. The U.S. "Healthy People" report chronicled Americans' struggles with chronic diseases, connecting poor health with harmful social conditions like poverty, as well as unhealthy habits.

"It was an extremely powerful articulation that no matter how many billions of dollars we throw at the problems of health in the American population, no amount of money can do the job," says Kabat-Zinn , who at the time was a researcher at University of Massachusetts Medical School and taught yoga and meditation on the side. "We have to ignite passion in people for taking care of themselves."

So Kabat-Zinn started a clinic to teach what he called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction – or MBSR – at UMass Medical School. The eight-week course offered a structured, secular approach to meditation – which involves learning to maintain awareness in the body in the present moment. The goal, says Kabat-Zinn was to teach people "how to take better care of yourself – not instead of medicine, but as a complement to whatever medicine can do."

In the decades that followed, his scientific studies, teachings and books grew into a movement – now active in hundreds of hospitals and medical centers – to use meditation and mindfulness in mainstream medical care . It also birthed a new area of research showing the practice can help with conditions like pain , anxiety and immune responses .

In recent years, mindfulness has gained traction as a potential tool to address problems on the population level, including trauma, loneliness and addiction. Kabat-Zinn, now Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and author of several books including the classic, Wherever You Go, There You Are , says societal transformation was always his intent for this powerful tool.

Shots - Health News

To help these school kids deal with trauma, mindfulness lessons over the loudspeaker.

In a wide ranging interview, Kabat-Zinn shared his thoughts on how mindfulness can extend beyond individual self-improvement – and affect social change. Here are five of his insights:

These interview excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.

1. The widespread adoption of mindfulness today is 'radical beyond imagining'

Medicine doesn't handle many of the [societal] problems that we're facing now very well. For instance, the Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, says loneliness is an epidemic that is causing enormous mental health problems – in the aftermath of the pandemic, even more so. And that's where mindfulness comes in.

[If you look at the] number of papers published per year on the subject of mindfulness in medical literature... it's just exploded and it's continuing to go in that direction. Today, there are centers for mindfulness in universities and medical centers all around the world.

So in a sense, with my aim of it becoming a public health intervention – it's already functioning that way. But what about taking it to the next level where government – which has a much bigger purview than any university or health center – starts to take responsibility?

This is what Vivek Murthy is doing – he has put out his own guided mindfulness meditations on an app called Calm.

Never in my wildest imagination could I have ever conceived that the Surgeon General of the United States would, in his own voice, out of his own meditative experience, offer a whole range of brief, beautiful, accessible guided meditations for the American population.

It's radical beyond imagining from the point of view of 1979.

2. Mindfulness combats social isolation by helping us connect with ourselves and others

There's a big difference between being lonely, which is [behind the] epidemic of loneliness – and learning how to be alone. It's very hard to be with other people in an authentic way unless you know yourself.

Mindfulness is so powerful because it teaches you how to be at home with yourself, starting with the body. [It starts with] a willingness to stay in the present moment, and just see what happens.

Everybody has a body. Every single person is breathing. And do we ever pay attention to it? This is like turning the tables on our own self-talk about how inadequate we are and saying: look, it's a bloody miracle. Everything about being human is an absolute miracle.

We all come from nameless generations for gazillions of years to give rise to this kind of genetic chromosome combination called "me." I live for a relatively short period of time, pass on my genes maybe, and then: gone. So why not recognize the miracle of the present moment?

You are a remarkable human being with infinite capacities for love, wisdom, connectivity, for contributing to making the world a safer, better place or [for] whatever it is that you most love.

And the miracle of miracles is that there's awareness, and it is embodied. And it has profound implications for healing, both at the level of the body and at the level of the body politic and therefore public health.The more people take responsibility for themselves, the more they recognize that there is no such thing as "myself" in isolation.

3. In our tech-driven world the big risk is that 'you end up being remote from yourself'

We're so distracted. We were so distractible for thousands of years before the advent of the digital revolution. And now, we have a supercomputer in our pocket or purse or backpack. We're continually looking for stuff to entertain us, amuse us, distract us, carry us away, divert us. It's become extremely addictive.

And what are we diverting ourselves from? Who we actually are.Ultimately, the biggest public health problem is [that] you end up being remote from yourself.

From a public health perspective, before we give up our analog selves, maybe we need to go back to some first principles.Maybe we need to understand what it means, inwardly and outwardly, to be an analog being before we wind up becoming so hybridized or colonized by the digital.

Already [many are] sounding the alarm that the mental health consequences of these kinds of digitized relationships are creating a kind of environment of dis-ease – let's put a hyphen between the "dis" and the "ease" – that can lead to all sorts of real disease.

We know from [decades of] research now that the mind can actually drive disease within the body, but it can also reverse it and heal it.

AUDIO BONUS: Practice mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness starts with sitting, says Kabat-Zinn, and feeling the sensations of the breath moving in the body. "Your assignment, so to speak, is to simply rest in awareness," he says.Take six minutes to practice mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn in this audio clip:

Meditate with Jon Kabat-Zinn

4. 'befriend' your mind and you may discover 'there's more right with you than wrong with you'.

The work [of mindfulness] is the interior work of cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, of paying attention to one's own mind, one's own body, one's own heart – the ways in which the mind plagues us and drives us crazy and compounds our stress. And then learning to befriend everything, putting out the welcome mat to see that your awareness of pain, for instance, is pain-free in this moment.

If you're anxious and you know that you're anxious, you already have a way to hold that anxiety, because the knowing is awareness.

Awareness is much, much bigger than thought. So what if we learn to access it so much that it becomes where we live, where we hang out?

My default mode – as the neuroscientist might say – is awareness rather than the helter-skelter mind that's all over the place – liking this, not liking that, having ideas about how I'm not good and all of that kind of stuff.

What mindfulness offers right from the start is the direct experience and evidentiary proof that there's more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what's wrong with you. And the proof is: Are you breathing? Do you have a body? Do you exist?

5. Life itself is the meditation practice

[It's better] not to have an agenda timewise on how long this should take before I reach full liberation or anything like that. But make this your default mode how you actually live your life – because every single moment is the only precious moment.

There's a line from Derek Walcott , who's an Afro-Caribbean Nobel laureate poet: "Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart / to itself, to the stranger who has loved you / all your life, whom you ignored / for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, / the photographs, the desperate notes / peel your own image from the mirror. / Sit. Feast on your life."

That's very wise advice – and the sitting, you know, he's not joking. I mean, it's: sit. You don't have to call it meditation. If you just think of it as sitting, you'd be wrong in a certain way because it's living. If life itself is not the meditation practice, then there is no meditation practice.

I don't see why all Americans can't do that in the same way as we all go out and play tennis or pickleball or football or whatever. I mean, everybody can do it. There are an infinite number of doors into the room of mindfulness or heartfulness. And it doesn't matter which door you go through. The important thing is to enter the room of your own potential as a human being.

It all rests right here in this present moment, in awareness. And so you've got everything you need.

• Jon Kabat-Zinn
• mindfulness

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

Scientists Just Gave Humanity an Overdue Reality Check. The World Will Be Better for It.

By Stephen Lezak

Mr. Lezak is a researcher at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford who studies the politics of climate change.

The world’s leading institution on geology declined a proposal on Wednesday to confirm that the planet has entered a new geologic epoch , doubling down on its bombshell announcement earlier this month. The notion that we’re in the “Anthropocene” — the proposed name for a geologic period defined by extensive human disturbance — has become a common theme in environmental circles for the last 15 years. To many proponents, the term is an essential vindication, the planetary equivalent of a long-sought diagnosis of a mysterious illness. But geologists weren’t convinced.

The international geology commission’s decision this week to uphold its vote of 12 to 4 may seem confusing, since by some measures humans have already become the dominant geologic force on the earth’s surface. But setting the science aside for a moment, there’s a reason to celebrate, because the politics behind the Anthropocene label were rotten to begin with.

For starters, the word Anthropocene problematically implies that humans as a species are responsible for the sorry state of the earth’s environments. While technically true, only a fraction of humanity, driven by greed and rapacious capitalism, is responsible for burning through the planet’s resources at an unsustainable rate. Billions of humans still lead lives with relatively modest environmental footprints, yet the terminology of the Anthropocene wrongly lays blame at their feet. Responding to the vote, a group of outside scientists wisely noted in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution that “our impacts have less to do with being human and more to do with ways of being human.”

What’s more, inaugurating a new geologic epoch is an unacceptable act of defeatism. Geologic epochs are not fleeting moments. The shortest one, the Holocene — the one we live in — is 11,700 years long and counting. The idea that we are entering a new epoch defined by human-caused environmental disaster implies that we won’t be getting out of this mess anytime soon. In that way, the Anthropocene forecloses on the possibility that the geologic future might be better than the present.

By placing Homo sapiens center stage, the Anthropocene also deepens a stark and inaccurate distinction between humanity and the planet that sustains us. The idea of “nature” as something separate from humankind is a figment of the Western imagination. We should be wary of language that further separates us from the broader constellation of life to which we belong.

Before the recent vote, the Anthropocene epoch had cleared several key hurdles on the path to scientific consensus. The International Commission on Stratigraphy, the global authority on demarcating the planet’s history, established a dedicated working group in 2009. Ten years later, the group formally recommended adopting the new epoch. But the proposal still had to be approved by a matryoshka doll of committees within the commission and its parent body, the International Union of Geological Sciences.

By all accounts, the process leading up to the vote was highly contentious. After the initial vote was held, scientists in the minority called for it to be annulled , citing procedural issues. This week, the committee’s parent authority stepped in to uphold the results.

Ultimately, what scuttled the proposal was disagreement about where to mark the end of the Holocene. The Anthropocene Working Group had settled on 1952, the year that airborne plutonium residue from testing hydrogen bombs fell across broad stretches of the planet. That ash, scientists reasoned, would leave a sedimentary signature akin to the boundaries that mark ancient geologic transitions. But scientists at the stratigraphy commission objected — what about the dawn of agriculture or the Industrial Revolution? After all, the human footprint on the planet long predates the atomic age.

“It’s very obvious to me that human activity started long before 1952,” Phil Gibbard, a founding member of the Anthropocene Working Group who is the secretary-general of the commission, said when we spoke on Thursday. “It just didn’t make sense to draw a rigid boundary within my lifetime.”

In recent years, philosophers have bandied about alternative names: the Capitalocene , the Plantationocene and even the Ravencene , a reference to the raven who figures widely in North Pacific Indigenous mythology as a trickster figure, reminding humans to be humble amid our destructive capacity. For my part, I’m partial to “post-Holocene,” an admission that the world is vastly different than it was 10,000 years ago, but that we can’t possibly predict — or name — what it might look like in another 10,000 years.

In the end, it might be too late to find a better term. The “Anthropocene” has already entered the popular lexicon, from the cover of The Economist to the title of a Grimes album. The scientists who coined the term do not have the power to extinguish it.

Whatever we choose to call these troubled times, what matters most is that we keep an open mind about what the future holds and maintain an appreciation for the complexity of the issues we face. The scars humanity leaves upon the earth are much too fraught to be represented with a single line drawn across time.

Looking ahead, we should follow the geologists’ lead and keep a healthy skepticism of the A-word. After all, nothing is more hubristic than reckless tyrants who names the world after themselves — think Stalingrad, Constantinople or Alexandria.

Geologists will continue to disagree over what to call the present era. The rest of us must continue the difficult politics of caring for a planet that can (still) support a panoply of life.

Stephen Lezak is a researcher at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford who studies the politics of climate change.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Tips for Writing an Effective Application Essay

How to Write an Effective Essay

Writing an essay for college admission gives you a chance to use your authentic voice and show your personality. It's an excellent opportunity to personalize your application beyond your academic credentials, and a well-written essay can have a positive influence come decision time.

Want to know how to draft an essay for your college application ? Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing.

Tips for Essay Writing

A typical college application essay, also known as a personal statement, is 400-600 words. Although that may seem short, writing about yourself can be challenging. It's not something you want to rush or put off at the last moment. Think of it as a critical piece of the application process. Follow these tips to write an impactful essay that can work in your favor.

1. Start Early.

Few people write well under pressure. Try to complete your first draft a few weeks before you have to turn it in. Many advisers recommend starting as early as the summer before your senior year in high school. That way, you have ample time to think about the prompt and craft the best personal statement possible.

You don't have to work on your essay every day, but you'll want to give yourself time to revise and edit. You may discover that you want to change your topic or think of a better way to frame it. Either way, the sooner you start, the better.

2. Understand the Prompt and Instructions.

Before you begin the writing process, take time to understand what the college wants from you. The worst thing you can do is skim through the instructions and submit a piece that doesn't even fit the bare minimum requirements or address the essay topic. Look at the prompt, consider the required word count, and note any unique details each school wants.

3. Create a Strong Opener.

Students seeking help for their application essays often have trouble getting things started. It's a challenging writing process. Finding the right words to start can be the hardest part.

Spending more time working on your opener is always a good idea. The opening sentence sets the stage for the rest of your piece. The introductory paragraph is what piques the interest of the reader, and it can immediately set your essay apart from the others.

4. Stay on Topic.

One of the most important things to remember is to keep to the essay topic. If you're applying to 10 or more colleges, it's easy to veer off course with so many application essays.

A common mistake many students make is trying to fit previously written essays into the mold of another college's requirements. This seems like a time-saving way to avoid writing new pieces entirely, but it often backfires. The result is usually a final piece that's generic, unfocused, or confusing. Always write a new essay for every application, no matter how long it takes.

5. Think About Your Response.

Don't try to guess what the admissions officials want to read. Your essay will be easier to write─and more exciting to read─if you’re genuinely enthusiastic about your subject. Here’s an example: If all your friends are writing application essays about covid-19, it may be a good idea to avoid that topic, unless during the pandemic you had a vivid, life-changing experience you're burning to share. Whatever topic you choose, avoid canned responses. Be creative.

6. Focus on You.

Essay prompts typically give you plenty of latitude, but panel members expect you to focus on a subject that is personal (although not overly intimate) and particular to you. Admissions counselors say the best essays help them learn something about the candidate that they would never know from reading the rest of the application.

7. Stay True to Your Voice.

Use your usual vocabulary. Avoid fancy language you wouldn't use in real life. Imagine yourself reading this essay aloud to a classroom full of people who have never met you. Keep a confident tone. Be wary of words and phrases that undercut that tone.

8. Be Specific and Factual.

Capitalize on real-life experiences. Your essay may give you the time and space to explain why a particular achievement meant so much to you. But resist the urge to exaggerate and embellish. Admissions counselors read thousands of essays each year. They can easily spot a fake.

9. Edit and Proofread.

When you finish the final draft, run it through the spell checker on your computer. Then don’t read your essay for a few days. You'll be more apt to spot typos and awkward grammar when you reread it. After that, ask a teacher, parent, or college student (preferably an English or communications major) to give it a quick read. While you're at it, double-check your word count.

Writing essays for college admission can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. A well-crafted essay could be the deciding factor─in your favor. Keep these tips in mind, and you'll have no problem creating memorable pieces for every application.

What is the format of a college application essay?

Generally, essays for college admission follow a simple format that includes an opening paragraph, a lengthier body section, and a closing paragraph. You don't need to include a title, which will only take up extra space. Keep in mind that the exact format can vary from one college application to the next. Read the instructions and prompt for more guidance.

Most online applications will include a text box for your essay. If you're attaching it as a document, however, be sure to use a standard, 12-point font and use 1.5-spaced or double-spaced lines, unless the application specifies different font and spacing.

How do you start an essay?

The goal here is to use an attention grabber. Think of it as a way to reel the reader in and interest an admissions officer in what you have to say. There's no trick on how to start a college application essay. The best way you can approach this task is to flex your creative muscles and think outside the box.

You can start with openers such as relevant quotes, exciting anecdotes, or questions. Either way, the first sentence should be unique and intrigue the reader.

What should an essay include?

Every application essay you write should include details about yourself and past experiences. It's another opportunity to make yourself look like a fantastic applicant. Leverage your experiences. Tell a riveting story that fulfills the prompt.

What shouldn’t be included in an essay?

When writing a college application essay, it's usually best to avoid overly personal details and controversial topics. Although these topics might make for an intriguing essay, they can be tricky to express well. If you’re unsure if a topic is appropriate for your essay, check with your school counselor. An essay for college admission shouldn't include a list of achievements or academic accolades either. Your essay isn’t meant to be a rehashing of information the admissions panel can find elsewhere in your application.

How can you make your essay personal and interesting?

The best way to make your essay interesting is to write about something genuinely important to you. That could be an experience that changed your life or a valuable lesson that had an enormous impact on you. Whatever the case, speak from the heart, and be honest.

Is it OK to discuss mental health in an essay?

Mental health struggles can create challenges you must overcome during your education and could be an opportunity for you to show how you’ve handled challenges and overcome obstacles. If you’re considering writing your essay for college admission on this topic, consider talking to your school counselor or with an English teacher on how to frame the essay.

Related Articles