Here, There, and Everywhere: Border-Crossing as Synthesis

• In Event: Educational Border-Crossings: Exploring Political and Cultural Boundaries and Their Influences on Educational Practice

Abstract

Overview of Discussant's Comments

To Know Is Not Enough. Perhaps there can be no more fitting theme for advocacy of the globalization of teacher education. In an era of high stakes testing, the reality for most teachers is the requirement to ensure their students can demonstrate knowledge via passage of standardized tests. Many teachers are being told that knowledge embedded in the standards IS enough. Such things as creative teaching, student engagement, critical thinking, cultural competency, or authentic assessment may often only be “allowed” AFTER students have ensured the powers that be that they have mastered the knowledge base deemed important by powers outside the school/community. Anecdotally (and clearly this is an area in need of research), I have heard from many quarters that teachers who attempt to deviate from the dictated and propagated (often packaged and purchased) pedagogical norms (e.g. literacy packages), are served with cease and desist orders in schools that have not met AYP. As I have written previously (Mahon, 2009), in my own work in international teacher education, I have been blatantly told that an international focus was not an appropriate expenditure of energy for a college of education during the era of No Child Left Behind. An examination of state standards of education will find little mentioned regarding international and intercultural knowledge and skills. Perhaps most notably, such information is often the purview of the social studies. While there is no doubt that national tests and standards will arrive for this content area, its absence should speak volumes regarding the devaluation of international content in our K-12 curriculum. Such skills and knowledge are thus discursively deemed extraneous. When we inhabit such a complex, global world, when our students and their teachers are told that standards and test scores are necessary to maintain our global competitiveness, this absence is a travesty committed upon our students. As Freire (2006) recognized, injustice committed upon the powerless requires moving beyond ourselves, revisiting and rearranging our understanding of the way the world has been drawn by and for us, if empowerment for true learning should ever occur. In the words of Clark Moutsakas, such work requires embracing the Firebrand within us. The papers presented here today embody the essence of the firebrand which is,

…the person who recognizes what is natural, what is organic, what is alive and vital in life, the person who dares to live …The firebrand expresses her-or himself in two basic ways: as the torch that lights up the darkness, and as the carrier of the torch, throwing light into the darkness, and often disturbing complacency and brewing trouble. (1995, p. 5-6).

As these papers show, truly to know is NOT enough, we must ignite and fan the flames of firebranding in teacher education, and truly attack the status quo if international/intercultural teaching, learning and living are truly to be valued.

Author

• Jennifer A. Mahon, University of Nevada - Reno