Asia Society Hosts International Education Prizes

I am very happy to report on the March 25 awards luncheon at the Asia Society's New York office which celebrated the final winners of the Goldman Sachs Foundation Prizes for Excellence in International Education. It is exciting to learn about such wonderful efforts around the country, which can and do serve as models for others. The Asia Society is a leading force in developing materials, programs and curricula to bring world education to America. (See this blog's posting for November 12, 2008 for more.)

Vivian Stewart, Asia Society Vice President, discussed the impact the prizes have been having since their inception in 2003. A video provided highlights of the John Stanford International School in Seattle, which was also represented on a panel by Karen Kodama, Founding Principal. (Watch this brief video and you can see more on edutopia.com ) There students learn Math and Science in Japanese or Spanish, depending on the track they choose.

Vishakha N. Desia, Asia Society President, moderated the panel, which also included Lynette Cletson, Managing Editor of The Root, Washington Post; Robert D. Harmats, Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs International, and Gene Wilson, Executive Director of the Council of Chief state School Officers.
Award winners by category were:
Elementary/Middle School: The Independence Charter School, Philadelphia. This is an urban public charter school which combines "two second language acquisition programs with an interdisciplinary curriculum, integrating traditions, literature, geography, economics and history."
High School: Bergen County Academies is a public, county-wide magnet technical school which is also certified as an International Baccalaureate program. Students take three or more years of a world language: French, Spanish, Latin or Mandarin.
District/State: The winner, the State of New Jersey, is involved in across-the-board curriculum redesign to "develop a world-class workforce by assisting the state's students to obtain the skills and education needed in a competitive global economy." This includes all nine areas of the curriculum: Visual and Performing Arts; Comprehensive Health and Physical Education; Language Arts Literacy; Mathematics; Science, Social Studies; World Languages; Technological Literacty; and Career Education and Consumer, Family and Life Skills.
Media / Technology: Co-recipients:
Google Lit Trips marries the written word with Google Earth imagery with nuggets of information about destinations or paths along the way. It's divided by grade level (K-5, 6-8, 9-12, HiEd). Having learned about this, I had to tour the site. I lived in Pakistan and worked with Afghan refugees, and was particularly intrigued by The Kite Runner and the sites that popped up in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then I looked at The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and at Voltaire's Candide. What a way to learn!

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting has won for its Global Gateway , which provides teens and young adults with interactive information about important issues around the world. It tackles difficult subjects, such as "the water wars", and HIV/AIDS, as well as informing about conflicts and progress in various countries. My personal congratulations to Jon Sawyer, Executive Director of the Center and formerly the Washington correspondent for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Jon was traveling in Ethiopia (doubtless with a video crew) and could not attend the lunch. Many of the Center's videos are shown on Foreign Exchange with Daljit Dhaliwal (a Public Television show started by Fareed Zakaria), which I also recommend.

Thank you to the Asia Society and the Goldman Sachs Foundation for your important work on promoting global education. I found this event not only celebratory of good work (which led me to think -- why aren't many, many more schools and educators doing more?) but also a great opportunity to network.

For those who asked for The Journal News Newspaper in Education supplements on global issues which go to about 55,000 students, teachers and administrators in Westchester, Putnam and Rockland Counties, NY, or for the video series "Going Global with the UN," which now has 69 of its 70 videos on line, here are the links:
SUPPLEMENTS:
Peace Makes the World a Better Place (December 2006)
Shaping Global Citizens -- The United Nations Millennium Development Goals in Action: Targeting Hunger (October 2007)
Shaping Global Citizens -- The Power of Partnerships (February 2009)
VIDEOS:
Going Global with the UN Video Series