Lori Locklear, one of the educators on World View’s Global Study Visit to China, detailed some of her feelings and experiences in an article for The Robesonian.

Lori, who was the Teacher of the Year for the Public Schools of Robeson County, teaches exceptional children in sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

“It was eye-opening to realize that the educators and teachers in China were experiencing similar educational successes and problems that we have in the United States. They were welcoming and friendly to us. It was extraordinary to be able to communicate with educators across the world,” she said. “I want our community to know we have more in common with people in China than we do differences. We build upon those differences to make the education field a better profession.”

Read the full article here.

NCTAN  (North Carolina Teaching Asia Network) and the Carolina Asia Center at UNC Chapel Hill are offering a workshop for K-12 educators on Thursday, August 9, 2018. This free program for educators includes lunch.

Location: The Fedex Global Education Center at UNC Chapel Hill (There is also a site offered at UNC-W for educators in the Wilmington area)

Theme: China Now

Time: 9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 9, 2018

Register here.

Read more ›

Nippon Club of the Triangle is hosting the NC Japan Summer Festival 2018. It will take place on Saturday, August 4, from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m at the Expo Center on the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, NC. Tickets are $6 at the door or $5 if you buy online ahead of time.

The festival will include J-pop, taiko drumming, a martial arts demonstration, Japanese food and beer, celebrations from the Bon and Tanabata festivals, and much more!

For more information, download the flier here.

Nǐ hǎo! For nearly two weeks this June, 19 North Carolina educators traveled to China on a World View Global Study Visit. The China Study Visit program goals included increasing educators’ knowledge and understanding about China’s history, diversity and complexity as well as its changing role in the contemporary world; increasing educators’ knowledge and understanding of China’s educational system and practices ; and enhancing educators’ personal and professional global competency capacities. This study visit proved to be transformative, impactful and inspirational.

Our study visit began in Beijing. The weather was hot and humid and a heavy layer of smog was evident as we touched down at Beijing Capital International Airport. We made our way directly from the airport to the 798 art district. This Bauhaus-style former industrial complex of Mao-era factories has been repurposed into a contemporary arts district filled with galleries, cafes and changing art installations.

Read more ›

Looking for a good summer read? Take a look at what World View staff are reading for inspiration!

Educated
by Tara Westover
Tara Westover was born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho. She grew up in isolation without any formal education, teaching herself math, grammar and science in her teens before applying to Brigham Young University. There, she studied philosophy and history and learned for the first time about pivotal world events like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Her quest for the education she was denied as a child eventually takes her to Harvard and then to Cambridge for a doctorate in history.

Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi
The story begins in Ghana with the birth of two half-sisters who are separated at birth. The story shows how their parallel paths through life depict the lasting effects of slavery on those participated in the enslavement of their own people and on those who were enslaved. While one sister marries a white Englishmen, the other is captured in her village and sold into slavery. The novel follows the two sister’s families through eight generations and various different historical events, with a recurring theme that underlines the constant challenge West Africans and African Americans face as they live with the troubled legacy of slavery and their captivity.

In the Time of the Butterflies
by Julia Alvarez
In the Time of the Butterflies transports us to the Dominican Republic in the mid-twentieth century when the country struggled under the brutal dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. A work of historical fiction, the novel honors the lives of Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal, who became icons of freedom and women’s rights when they were assassinated in the autumn of 1960 for their role in the underground movement against Trujillo’s regime. The murders of the three women inspired many in the Dominican Republic to denounce the regime publicly and marked the beginning of the end for Trujillo’s reign. In 1999 the United Nations General Assembly designated the date of the Mirabal sisters’ deaths, November 25, as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve
by Lenora Chu
An American journalist of Chinese descent raising a young family in Shanghai, Chu noticed how well-behaved Chinese children were compared to her boisterous toddler. How did the Chinese create their academic super-achievers? Would their little boy benefit from Chinese school? Chu and her husband decided to enroll three-year-old Rainer in China’s state-run public school system. The results were positive—her son quickly settled down, became fluent in Mandarin, and enjoyed his friends—but she also began to notice troubling new behaviors. Wondering what was happening behind closed classroom doors, she embarked on an exploratory journey, interviewing Chinese parents, teachers and education professors, and following students at all stages of their education. Chu’s eye-opening investigation challenges our assumptions and asks us to consider the true value and purpose of education.

We are pleased to announce the finalists for World View’s 2018 OVERBook Project on the Environment and Sustainability. The 12 Fellows represent a variety of disciplines across K-5, 6-8, 9-12 and community college. More information about the Fellows will be posted on the World View Fellows program site this summer.

• Patricia Adams, Psychology, Pitt Community College
• Janis Antonek, Spanish, Middle College, UNCG
• Lisa Brewer, Instructional Coach, Silverdale Elementary, Onslow County Schools
• Meghan Davis, Biotechnology, Rowan-Cabarrus Community College
• Jack Hudson, English, Providence Day
• Jacey MacDonald, ELA, Daniels Magnet Middle School, Wake County Public Schools
• Stephanie Morgan, Math, Pisgah High School, Haywood County Schools
• Heather Oswald, Science, The Cannon School
• Annie Polashock, Math and Social Studies, Heritage Middle School, Wake County Public Schools
• Lee Ann Smith, Media Specialist, Glen Arden Elementary, Buncombe County Schools
• Lori Townsend, Science, Charlotte Country Day
• Holly Grant Whistler. Developmental English and College Success, Nash Community College

The OVERBook Project on the Environment and Sustainability is an interdisciplinary professional learning opportunity which aims to deepen educators’ understanding of contemporary global environmental and sustainability issues and resources for teaching about these issues. The program culminates in the creation of study guides with educator resources created by World View Fellows in connection with photos featured in the Population Institute’s OVERBook. We look forward to meeting the 12 Fellows in Chapel Hill in July for the opening workshop.

World View received numerous applications, making the decision a very difficult one. We appreciate the interest, efforts and commitment to global education of all the applicants and encourage educators from World View partner institutions to apply for the 2019 World View Fellows program, to be announced during the 2018-2019 academic year.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018
UNC Chapel Hill

In the Learning through Languages High School Research Symposium, North Carolina world language high school students will have the opportunity to showcase their language, research, and presentation skills in a scholarly environment. Eligible students include Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian or Spanish students, including heritage speakers. Participating students are encouraged to be at Level III or higher.

Students will choose a topic relevant to five research tracks with regional focuses: Contemporary Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, or the Middle East & North Africa. Teams will write a research paper and present it at the symposium in their respective language. This program is designed to promote student learning in the areas of research methodology, technology literacy, and critical thinking and to encourage the learning of new academic vocabulary.

Save-the-date: The symposium will take place Wednesday, December 12 on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. For more information, please visit http://areastudies.unc.edu/ltl/ or read answers to frequently asked questions. Teams are selected to participate via application process; the application will be available in August.

On April 26-27, 2018, media coordinators from across North Carolina headed to the Carolina Center for Educational Excellence for a two-day World View workshop on creating a global media center. The workshop opened with an intensive interactive session on equity; Sandra Hughes-Hassell, Casey Rawson and Kimberly Hirsh, all from the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, had participants parse out the components of an equitable school library and share how they could make their libraries more equitable for students, parents and community members. Read more ›

Anne Tomalin, an ESL teacher from Chapel Hill High School, has been named a Fund for Teachers Fellow. She will receive a grant to cover the cost of the World View Global Study Visit Program to China in June and will travel to Beijing, Xi’an, Guilin, Yangshuo and Shanghai with the rest of the World View cohort. Tomalin hopes to learn about China’s educational practices, its culture and its languages, as well as discover new ways to support her Asian refugee students. Though she has been in the classroom for over twenty years, she cites the changing demographics as a reason for her to adapt how and what she teaches.

“I believe one missing piece of the puzzle [of low scores of English learners on end-of-course exams] is that we don’t have sufficient knowledge of their cultural and educational background, and how that background influences the way they learn. Without this knowledge, we aren’t able to provide them with culturally responsive instruction. By observing a completely different educational setting, I hope to cultivate the ability to think outside of the box about how best to serve the needs of our district’s EL students,” Tomalin said.

Tomalin will be blogging about her experience here.

Read the rest of the article from Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools here.