I enrolled in Michigan State’s graduate education program as a veteran teacher with fourteen years of experience in classrooms that spanned grade levels, subject areas and populations. I looked upon my two years at MSU as an opportunity to receive the final stamp of approval on my seasoned teaching career, while perhaps picking up a handful of useful technology skills and differentiation strategies. For me, teaching was about helping students acquire skills with the end goal of those skills being matriculation to college and a successful academic career. I had no idea that my time in Michigan State’s program would reshape the way in which I viewed my own vocation, and force me to reconsider exactly which skills were the most critical for my students.
It was perhaps fortuitous that one of the first courses I took at MSU was predicated upon the values that I have found to underpin Michigan State University’s educational philosophy, and which have since reshaped my own.
In Teaching and Learning K-12 Social Studies, I was exposed to the concept of global citizenship, not as a by-product of a liberal arts education, but as the focal point of intentional instruction. Throughout the semester-long course, I began to understand the need to arm students with a particular set of skills, necessary for global citizenship. In the past, I had assumed it was enough to raise awareness in my students, helping them learn about the plight of those less fortunate than themselves. But this awareness was always focused on “fixing” what was wrong and “helping” those in need. It assumed a position of moral superiority and did not seek to understand the perspective of those who were suffering or, more difficult to grasp, the perspective of those who inflicted the suffering upon others. MSU brought to my attention the need for students to develop the skills of empathy, perspective-taking, and critical thinking that are so necessary to global citizenship. In an age when our own nation is increasingly polarized, when those in positions of power seek to demonize foreigners and marginalized populations as weak or dangerous, and when statements that are demonstrably false are presented as “alternative facts,” the greatest gift teachers can give their students is the ability to think critically, consider multiple perspectives and empathize with others.
In the course of my two years of study, I have come to appreciate the importance of global citizenship, and my goals have been entirely upended. Michigan State’s program was originally meant to be the final piece of my own learning, but now, I have reconsidered everything I once took for granted. The focus and drive behind my own teaching has changed, and in order to feed this focus and drive, I sense that I will continue to be engaged as a learner as I seek to expand and refine my own knowledge and skills so that I can better prepare my students for the world in which they live.