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"High school students in Wisconsin will be eligible as early as this year to earn a new global studies certificate, the state Department of Public Instruction announced Wednesday.
The Global Scholars program can be voluntarily adopted by school districts across the state and will allow high schools to award the Global Education Achievement Certificate.
The certificate — which the state says is the first of its kind in the country — will be awarded to students who demonstrate their global competency through coursework and extracurricular activities, according to Gerhard Fischer, international and world languages education consultant for the DPI."
Via GoogleLitTrips Reading List
Love this idea and see many possible means for increasing the rigor of the choices students make as they exercise the options for elective courses.
Rather than fill their elective coursework with "easy courses," why not dangle a carrot in front of them that encourages them to score something of "extra value" in areas of existing curiosity or perceived real world value to them?
From the article...
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"School districts will determine the criteria for global competency, said Gilles Bousquet, chairman of the statewide International Education Council, a backer of the policy.
Each district will use its current courses — literature, foreign language, history, geography, mathematics, science, and the arts — to create district-specific criteria that works within DPI’s (Department of Public Instruction) model for the certificate."
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I was particularly intrigued because the certificates were a single result of a cross-curricular AND cross-cultural (global awareness) focus.
And, I can't help but believe that the concept would be a great way to include the cultural values that the arts bring into to push for STEM education and thereby bring much needed wisdom to the information age.
I might tweak the curriculum a bit, though I fully endorse the general concept. For example, I love the cross-curricular requirements. However, in the limited space available, I'm not certain that I would have half the requirements be in foreign language (more frequently being referred to as world languages since few languages are foreign anymore).
And rather than have students simply meet the requirements by enrolling in current courses, I'd tuck in a requirement that at least one, maybe two of the courses be taken "over and above" the basic requirements for graduation.
But, nevertheless, it's a very forward thinking concept and a potential for providing engaging extensions to the rigor-level of a school's curriculum.
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