Bringing the World Into My Classroom
Jocelyn Fong is one of the eight OWYP Project Ambassadors at the Georgetown University Hub. This is her second year volunteering for One World Youth Project, leading our global citizenship curriculum in middle and high school classrooms in the Columbia Heights Education Campus and connecting her classrooms with classrooms abroad.
Thinking back on a year of OWYP classroom visits, I visualize a whirlwind of images – post-it notes, smiles, maps, laughs, and silliness. It’s been quite the trans-national journey, our classes delving into societal issues plaguing places as far away as Kosovo and South Africa and as near to our backyard as Washington, D.C. And that’s why it’s been such an amazing experience – our students have come so far from the Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C., USA bubble, growing in their understanding of what it means to be a global citizen, a citizen of the world:
From Lucy, who bridged the gap between the ideas of “us” and “them” with her understanding of the significance of cross-cultural communication, her recognition of the cultural stereotypes embedded in media as pervasive as Family Guy, and her ability to see generalizations’ detrimental effect on inter-cultural relations.
To Adrienne, who enriched our understanding of world interconnectedness with her recognition of global interdependence, her analysis of China’s inexpensive labor markets and cellphone’s negative feedback loops, and her realization that global connection does not translate into global equality, either between countries or within countries.
And Antoinette, who inspired us to apply our classroom knowledge to our own lives with her perspective on homelessness attuned to the needs of the individual, her self-confidence to get involved in the D.C. homeless community, and her initiative in making a list of soup kitchens, clothes drives, and shelters at which she could volunteer.
Students who once didn’t look really much beyond their classroom, much beyond their community are now emerging as reinvigorated citizens wanting to engage with the world. It’s moments like these when I see the power of OWYP coming to life. For me, it’s seeing our students transform from learners to leaders, their ideas transforming from scribbles on paper into realities in life. It’s them being empowered enough that they know they can make a difference, change the world a little bit at a time.
As a literary master once said, “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” With our OWYP classroom visits, we are both broadening students’ awareness of the wider world and increasing their toolboxes for tackling its challenges. We’re encouraging them to think outside the box so that they can imagine a different world that they have the power, desire and will to create.
Check out a short video on our work in DC middle/high school classrooms: