Riding in a
taxi in Istanbul reminded me yet again of just how interconnected our world has
become. There I was sitting up front
with a driver who spoke no English while the radio blasted Shakira. I would
cringe when the driver would check either his iPhone or his Blackberry while
flying along on the highway as the station played one song after another, none
of which were in Turkish. I realized
that the cabbie and I could have been anywhere in the world. We shared the same
front seat physically, but we were in completely different worlds; he was
somewhere in cyberspace while I just wanted to arrive at our destination alive.
As I sweated
out that drive, I was aware that I was witnessing another physical manifestation
of the world in which our teens live. My
son plays video games nightly with a “friend” in San Diego he has never met and
a very close buddy who recently relocated to Canada. My other son cheers for NBA stars from all
over the world, but it’s only during the Olympics that he realizes that some of
his favorite players hail from other countries. For both of them, the place where one is
born and currently resides poses no obstacles to hanging out together nor does
it determine one’s future. The world truly
is their oyster.
I also began
to wonder to whom these students will feel a loyalty as they get older. Do they consider themselves Americans sharing
a common bond with those people who also live in the United States, or will
they have a closer connection with peers in other places that listen to the
same music, play the same video games, or use the same social networking
sites? Are facts of geography
interesting but irrelevant in this time?
During the Olympics, I sometimes find myself bothered at what feels like
jingoism; in this cyber age, excessive nationalism may be even more anachronistic
than ever before. Our children, citizens
of a global society, are able to live and work anywhere. “There’s a great job in Dubai, so I am going
there!” “My girl/boyfriend is from
Taiwan, so I am moving there!” Has the
concept of a country become superfluous?
Earlier this
year, The Atlantic Magazine included
an article called “The Rise of the Global Elite.” The author Chrystia Freeland says, “What is more
relevant to our times, though, is that the rich of today are also different
from the rich of yesterday. Our light-speed, globally connected economy has led
to the rise of a new super-elite that consists, to a notable degree, of first-
and second-generation wealth. Its members are hardworking, highly educated,
jet-setting meritocrats who feel they are the deserving winners of a tough,
worldwide economic competition—and many of them, as a result, have an
ambivalent attitude toward those of us who didn’t succeed so spectacularly.
Perhaps most noteworthy, they are becoming a transglobal community of peers who
have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home.
Whether they maintain primary residences in New York or Hong Kong, Moscow or
Mumbai, today’s super-rich are increasingly a nation unto themselves.”
So, how do
we prepare our students for this inter-connected world? How do we teach them to appreciate where they
are currently while being prepared for and excited about the opportunities with
which they are presented? We need to guide
them to develop a sense of place so they fully understand and value their
current location wherever they are; however, we also need to help them develop
a mindset of curiosity and flexibility that will dispose them to study and live
anywhere. At Bosque School, we have had
many discussions over the past year on teaching students a sense of place so
they can immerse themselves wherever they live: this means studying the
literature, the history, the language, the culture, the arts, and the music of
a place so they can see how they fit in and even extend their connection to
that space. We also, though, have an
ongoing partnership with a school in Mexico City that allows for student and
teacher exchanges and enables students to expand their visions beyond New
Mexico. We are even looking at the possibility of collaborating with a school
in Istanbul that would allow for joint curricular development and travel for
students and teachers between the two schools.
Part of that program would include teaching students how to be fully in
Turkey or Mexico when they are there.
Although
some may see these two trends as going into different directions, I don’t see these
types of international partnerships in any way contradicting our commitment to
teaching students about “place.” On the
contrary, the two go hand-in-hand. One
can be a resident of a certain place and yet a citizen of the world. If we can
teach our students how to develop both ways of seeing the world, we can help
them to be “at home” wherever they may be.
That would be truly exciting.
