College's Symposium on International Education highlights challenges facing students and educators worldwide
News Release | April 1, 2016
Photo Gallery: Symposium on International Education
Educators gathered in Virginia Wesleyan College's Hofheimer Library on April 1 for the first Symposium on International Education. With a theme of “Think Globally, Teach Locally,” the symposium highlighted challenges facing students and educators worldwide.
“I am excited to be a part of a conversation that encourages educators to see themselves as part of an international endeavor,” said event organizer Hilve Firek, Batten Associate Professor of Education. “After all, that is what teaching is: an international endeavor. When we face challenges in our own classrooms, we know that teachers around the world are facing challenges, too.”
Serving as the symposium’s keynote speaker was Fred Mednick, founder of Teachers Without Borders. He described what happened when a single question—“What do you see outside your window?”—led to the concept of Teachers Without Borders, and how the organization's members have conceived and led a wide range of global initiatives, conferences, and courses in burning issues such as girls’ education, peace and human rights, and education in national and natural emergencies. Mednick also showed how liberal arts colleges like Virginia Wesleyan can work together with Teachers Without Borders to “think globally and teach locally” in order to help mend and repair a broken world.
Mednick founded Teachers Without Borders in 2000 in order to connect teachers to information and each other so that they may be an indispensable force for local change—on a global scale. Today, its members represent 184 countries. Mednick is also an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, he has advised the leadership of The Organization of American States, and he leads academics for the International Institute for Education for Development. Watch his TEDx Talk, "Rebuilding Education From Below the Ground and Up."
Also presenting was Beverly Ann Chin, Ph.D., Chair of the English Department at the University of Montana, who shared experiences from her work in international education. Chin has observed students, collaborated with teachers, and provided professional development workshops in many countries, including China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Thailand, and Taiwan. She explored what is unique and what is universal in teaching literacy to children and young adults across the world and in the United States.
Chin is a former president of the National Council of Teachers of English and a highly respected leader in literacy standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment. She served on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, an organization dedicated to certification of accomplished teachers. She was the senior project consultant for the 2011 Writing Framework of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—the Nation's Report Card.
A screening of Girl Rising, a global campaign for girls' education, will also take place as part of the symposium on Monday, April 4 with a discussion led by Mednick. It's a Girl: The Three Deadliest Words in the World, a documentary about "gendercide" in India and China, will be shown on Tuesday, April 5 with a discussion led by Chin. Both screenings are free and open to the public and begin at 6 p.m. in Blocker Auditorium.
The Symposium on International Education is sponsored by Virginia Wesleyan's Education Department, the Office of Academic Affairs, and the Center for Innovative Teaching and Engaged Learning. For additional information, contact Hilve Firek at 757.233.8749 or hfirek@vwu.edu.