Middle Schoolers In the Big Blue World


Middle School students tend to pretty self-absorbed.  

I overheard this little conversation at the end of class one day recently:  "I mean, you know, he's not dating anyone right now and he'll be at the skating rink on Saturday so yeah I'll go even if I have to donate a can of food."

They are mainly concerned with their own little world and if an issue fits into it, then yeah, they'll go even if they have to donate a can of food.  

Of course, this is a generalization, but I truly think our students' focus today is very narrow and very local.  


"No because maybe they need to focus (on themselves)."

Many of them have no idea what life is like outside of their immediate community.  Only 4 out of my 17 students have ever been out of the state of Florida.  Only one of those 17 had ever been out of our country.  

England might as well be another planet.  Why should they care about the British or any other country?  What do these places have to do with them anyway?


Ah, this is the trick to creating a global classroom:  We need to show our students what the world has done (or is doing or will do) for them.

I started with some bell work questions that we discussed and even some students revised their opinions after listening to answers like this one:




Then we looked at a map.  We marked the places that people in the room have been to so we could see where they were in the world.  It was also interesting to see how far away they are from our town.



It was interesting to discuss what they thought life might be like there.  Some students had various stereotypes to share and some just had absolutely no idea what might or might not be in any particular country we discussed.

As a result, my next move is a trip around the world - well, virtually at least.  :)

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/globaltrek/


The site says "What are the benefits of seeing the world?"  

Indeed.  I hope that something like this helps my students find that out.  There's a big blue world out there just waiting to be explored!

And with the most recent events in France, it is even more important that my middle schoolers understand the impact those events can have on their own lives.  They need to know that what happens in places like Paris is important to us here in America.  They need to know that hate will not drive out hate.  They need to know to look for (and maybe be) the helpers like Mister Rogers said.   It will not be easy, but important things never are.  I plan to use the ideas in this post to help me discuss these things with my students:  




What do you do in your classroom to help create global citizens?  Join in the conversation in the comments or by linking up below!