Teacher Education in a Global Context

Demands of the Global Context

As nations are developing their education systems and opening educational opportunities to a broader population of learners, they are confronting the issues of ensuring the quality of teacher education, dealing with the shortage of qualified teachers, and meeting the needs of more diverse students. In their attempts to meet those needs, nations are recruiting educators from more diverse populations and from abroad. These educators are exiting their own cultural niche to enter the cultures and work with diversities that may be very different from their own.

Educators of the twenty-first century are working in a global society and preparing students to be citizens of that society. National as well as state and local economies are competing for the world's resources, among them jobs, education, services, minerals, water, fossil fuels, and intellectual property. This competition tends to increase friction between the “haves” and “have nots,” both globally and locally. Immigration and outsourcing of jobs are key issues.

Educators must prepare young people to create policy and practice that address quality-of-life issues and determine who will have access to basic needs/resources. An unequal distribution of resources and opportunities by ethnic/racial groups will create factors that place children at risk (poor health, poverty, violence, homelessness, migration, education, etc.) and affect local, national, and international societies. Educators will have the responsibility of educating these at-risk learners.

Within this global context, teacher preparation is aimed toward preparing globally competent teachers and, as a result, globally competent students and citizens. Within a global context, teacher education prepares teachers who demonstrate the ability to listen, observe, evaluate, analyze, interpret, and relate political and cultural histories, global systems, and global issues. Teachers are also prepared to understand the interconnectedness and implications of local and national decisions on global issues (nation-states, regions, ethnic groups, European and non-European origins, languages, history, traditions), and vice versa. Teachers prepared within a global context can prepare students to be successful citizens in a global society, who themselves exhibit these same characteristics.

Required Characteristics

Teacher preparation programs that incorporate a global context focus on personal experiences, inter-cultural communication, problem solving, and collaboration in the context of global cultures and issues as well as local, state, and national cultures and issues. Personal experiences might include faculty providing their teacher candidates with personal acquaintance and experience with a culture different from their own through field experiences in situations that are new and uncomfortable and bringing the world to their teacher candidates in a way that can be heard and understood. The focus of these experiences should be development of self-knowledge, or awareness and understanding by teacher candidates of their own [Page 787]filters, beliefs, practices, and norms. Providing teacher candidates with opportunities to experience, interpret, reflect on, and share out-of-comfort-zone experiences with the guidance of faculty and trusted others encourages them to listen to people who others may think have nothing to say, see what the larger society often overlooks, and understand the implications for their own professional practice.

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