Abstract
In times like now of disruption, uncertainty, and rapid change, reconnecting with the deeper purpose that animates our work becomes especially important. Revisiting the experiences and motivations that originally drew us to our work allows this deeper purpose and the values that undergird it to resurface. Engaging in this exercise can provide us with resilience and courage to continue when external circumstances challenge our assumptions and priorities. As the educator and activist Palmer (2000) has so elegantly articulated, “Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent” (p. 3). The following reflection explores a few of the personal and professional experiences that led me to the field of international education, its purpose and underlying values that continue to shape my commitment to its mission.
My passion for international education began when I was 6 or 7. I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. Neighborhoods then were monocultural and monoracial, and as far as I knew, only Jewish families lived in mine—until the Anastasios moved onto our block. Greg Anastasio was a great athlete and fit in well with the group of kids on our block. All of us played ball games in the street every day we could and rode bikes around the neighborhood until dark. What set Greg apart was the yard shrine in front of his house. I was curious, envious, and a little bit nervous about it. Why did his family have a religious statue in front of their house? Why didn’t we? What did this all mean? I remember the first time going into the Anastasio’s house—the warmth of his mother’s greeting, and a feeling of enchantment and safety. As I realized much later, this feeling of safety amidst difference became a theme for me, and a guidepost, part of my purpose, which I much later termed global learning.
I have many other memories of the formation of my purpose—my “why” within international education, but the one that turned out to be most significant for me in my youth occurred when I was 16 years old. It was the height of the civil rights movement, and the attempts to integrate public schools through busing were playing out in real time in New Haven. As a teenager, along with most of my friends in my neighborhood, I was bused to a public school in a predominately African American neighborhood, very close to where protests were taking place during the Black Panther trials of Bobby Seale. The student population before we were bused in was 97% African American and Puerto Rican.
Rather than make a positive difference in our education by learning with a diverse group of students, the busing effort produced a profound sense of confusion amongst all of us—the teachers, those of us who were bused in, and the students who had been there before us. Although we learned about diversity in our social studies classes, there was no professional development for teachers to help students’ learning with diversity, and not so much as an orientation session to guide students with the transition. As a result, each ethnic and racial group stayed apart from the others, and in the rare moments when we interacted with one another, it was with anxiety and trepidation.
This pivotal time in my life didn’t lead to a sudden breakthrough, but gradually I began to notice strategies that helped people’s communication across difference and strategies that hindered such communication. And deeper inside me, I felt that there must be ways for difference—for diversity—to become a catalyst for a positive learning experience.
When I began my professional career as an educator, I was determined to foster all students’ voices in a collaborative learning process in which the end goal was to tackle complex issues in and out of the classroom and take actions that promote individual and collective well-being. Whether teaching English-as-a-Foreign Language as a Peace Corps volunteer in an all-girls high school in Morocco, working with prisoners on their writing skills in a community college setting in the Bronx, facilitating professional development workshops for faculty learning to infuse global competencies and interactive strategies in courses throughout the curriculum, or leading a research-intensive university’s efforts to make global awareness, global perspective, and global engagement a part of every student’s undergraduate education, I have always held tight to my purpose, ensuring that my day-to-day decisions, and short and long-term priorities are aligned with my deepest values.
Each of us has a purpose rooted in the different values we associate with our particular area in higher education. As an educator following Schon’s (1983) idea of reflection-on-action, or thinking back on experience, and reflection-in-action, or thinking while doing, I was able to combine critical self-reflection, research on the history of the term ‘global learning,’ and my work leading a university-wide global learning curriculum initiative to develop, with a colleague, a definition for global learning. “Global learning is the process of diverse people analyzing and addressing complex issues that transcend borders and engaging in actions that promote collective well-being” (Landorf & Doscher, 2023). Global learning can happen within or outside the classroom, in a formal or informal setting, locally, nationally, or internationally, online, in person, or abroad. It is different from international education in that the former refers to the activities that institutions engage in or an academic field of study, whereas global learning refers to how students learn (Olsen et al., 2006).
Within the definition of global learning lie the values, inclusivity, collaboration, and social responsibility, that have steadied me in these uncertain times. Inclusivity is the commitment to ensuring that all individuals and communities are recognized, respected, and able to participate meaningfully in learning about and with others and engaging with the world, regardless of their cultural, linguistic, socio-economic, national, racial, ethnic, religious, political, sexual, or other identities (Landorf & Nevin, 2007). As a value, inclusivity reflects the belief that I hold, and share with many others, that global learning is enriched when diverse perspectives, experiences, and ways of knowing are welcomed and considered in and outside the classroom.
Collaboration goes hand in hand with inclusivity. Collaboration describes the nature of engagement and connection among diverse global learners. Salmons and Wilson (2008), researchers in collaborative learning, define it as “an interactive process that engages two or more participants who work together to achieve outcomes they could not accomplish independently” (p. 8). Collaboration is grounded in the idea that learning is social and that new knowledge emerges through the exchange of diverse experiences and perspectives. Global learning challenges require collaboration because no single person, group, perspective, or discipline can fully understand or address them by themselves. By combining diverse ideas and insights, collaborators can generate innovative approaches and solutions to complex problems that transcend borders of all kinds.
Finally, social responsibility as a value in global learning entails a commitment to recognizing our interconnectedness with others and acting ethically to contribute to the well-being of local, national, and global communities. It reflects the belief that individuals have obligations not only to understand global issues but also to respond to them in ways that promote equity, sustainability, justice, and the common good. Social responsibility moves global learning beyond the acquisition of knowledge toward informed and ethical action. It encourages learners to consider how their decisions, behaviors, and leadership practices affect others and to engage constructively with complex global challenges.
As researchers and practitioners, our commitment to our purpose and its underlying values allows us to produce our best work and can shape the future of our chosen field. It’s important, once we discover our purpose, that we affirm the values undergirding this directional point within ourselves, with each other, and within and beyond the academy. And now, when the onslaught of criticism against higher education ranges from its rising costs, and unclear returns on investment, to its poor workforce relevance and career preparation, its ideological biases, and its resistance to innovation and organizational change, holding on to our purpose and values is more essential than ever.
