Creating the Global Classroom: Approaches to Developing the Next Generation of World Savvy Students

The book examines how to begin to think like a global educator first by examining how our own histories and experiences have formed our own cultural and professional identities and second how the varied frames by which global education can be understood – pedagogical, ideological and cosmopolitan – have shaped the field. Laurence Peters connects theory and practice about global education relevant to cultivating global awareness in primary and secondary students. Rather than seeing global education as a special field separate from the other disciplines the author encourages integration of global perspectives into everything we do. Showcasing how global awareness is a developmental issue, dependent upon the student’s ability to step outside of their own place-based comfort zone, this volume lays out a roadmap of major challenges and issues around instilling this awareness in students.

This book connects theory and practice about global education relevant to cultivating global awareness in primary and secondary students. From this foundation, the book engages with the challenge of integrating global perspectives within a crowded curriculum. By convincing students and teachers alike of global education’s centrality, thinking globally becomes an integral component of learning across subject areas and grade levels, and this work encourages students to exercise empathy for the other and to develop critical skills to see through media distortions and 'fake news' so they can better resist the tendency of politicians in our increasingly multicultural countries to divide people along racial and ethnic lines.

Laurence Peters was born in London, England, and studied at the University of Sussex and later taught English for several years in the UK before subsequently moving to the US to pursue a doctorate degree in Education. Following a period of undergraduate teaching Laurence gained a Law Degree from the University of Maryland in 1986 and became counsel to the Subcommittee on Select Education & Civil Rights for the US House of Representatives (1986–1993) and later served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the US Department of Education (1993–2001). Dr. Peters co-wrote From Digital Divide to Digital Opportunity, Rowman (2003) and co-edited Scaling Up: Lessons from Technology Based Educational Improvement, Jossey Bass (2005) and Global Education: Using Technology to Bring the World to Your Students, ISTE (2009). His most recent book is The United Nations: History and Core Ideas, Palgrave (2015). Laurence currently teaches Global Education Policy at Johns Hopkins University and is married with three children.