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WEAC members in the 2007 Education International delegation are (left to right)
Bob Lehmann, Jeanne Lehmann, Florence Hyatt, Dennis Oulahan, Ann Oulahan, Pam Hill, Glenn Schmidt, Patricia Hill, Bob Fullmer, and Peggy Fullmer.
By Glenn Schmidt
NEA and WEAC Boards of Directors
Wisconsin a leader in By Pamela Hill The Practice of the Year Award that Wisconsin won for its global literacy initiative in June from the Partnership for the 21st Century Skills was just the latest such award for State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster and her ground-breaking international efforts. “Wisconsin is a nationally recognized leader in bringing an international perspective to its educational system,” said John Box, vice-chair of the partnership. He was referring to such innovations as Wisconsin’s written guide to “Planning Curriculum in International Education,” its Statewide International Education Council (established in 2002), and its direct connections with educators and communities in France, Germany, Japan and Thailand. Not content to rest on laurels, Burmaster convened a two-day meeting in August on Developing Wisconsin’s International Education Strategic Plan. She issued four categories of challenges for the group: • Advocacy – Delivering the message on the importance of international education. • Curriculum – Internationalizing curriculum in math, social studies, science, English and reading, music, art, technical education, and other subjects. • Technology – Using it to develop students’ global literacy. • Study Abroad – Assuring student learning while students are away from their own schools. |
How Wisconsin got to be such a hotbed of international education is something of a mystery. But it is. State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster regularly brings in national awards for the Department of Public Instruction (see sidebar) and WEAC members show up at international venues in ever increasing numbers.
The Education International World Congress held in Berlin, Germany, this past summer is a good example. Ten WEAC members were in the delegation, more than any other state except California.
The World Congress is on a different continent every three years; this year's 5th World Congress brought together 390 free education unions from 170 countries totaling 30 million teachers and education workers. About 200 members of NEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) were among the approximately 1,400 Congress attendees in Berlin.
Anyone who has been to an NEA Representative Assembly will recognize the Congress format, sort of. Delegates vote on resolutions and vote for officers, although voting is done essentially as a bloc. Many of the issues were the same, e.g., funding, privatization and working conditions.
Many were different, either in scope or in intensity: AIDS, war, terrorism, education for girls, and education as a human right.
Language was another difference. Delegates could speak in any one of seven languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Arabic, or Russian and be understood almost immediately through translators and remote headphones.
Although most U.S. delegates were monolingual, the world has turned our way in the last decade. English continues to become everybody’s second language, such that delegates from Sweden and Spain, for example, invariably communicated in English. One piece of unfinished business from the last World Congress in Porto Alegre, Brazil, three years ago was the Iraq War. At that time a Spanish resolution condemning the war was opposed by the United States, and the world was pretty harsh on us, passing it overwhelmingly.
This time, NEA President Reg Weaver brought a similar resolution that had been passed by the NEA RA in July. For technical reasons EI didn’t want to accept the resolution, and a confrontation ensued with the Australian chair of EI’s Resolutions Committee.
Eventually the resolution was integrated into one proposed by AFT in some behind-the-scenes compromising, and it passed with little debate.
In other business, the World Congress re-elected Reg Weaver to a three-year term as vice president. It also voted to convene the next World Congress four years from now on the continent of Africa.
A globally literate • Speak one or more languages in addition to English. • Train for high skill jobs in the U.S. and abroad. • Find ways to travel, explore, and be creative in a culture other than his/her own. • Evidence curiosity and compassion for people of other cultures. • Solve problems by working together with others in a diverse workplace. • Appreciate and protect the arts and nature in any place on Earth. |
At the international level, there is much more focus on educators as members of labor unions. While we may not like the Bush administration’s nationalization of education and sending agencies such as the Department of Labor and IRS after us, it pales in comparison with what union members confront in other countries.
Torture, kidnapping and murder are by-products of union membership in Colombia, Guatemala and Ethiopia. Government suppression is found in many African countries, China and even places like Fiji (four coups in 20 years).
The right of unions to act collectively for the benefit of their members is under constant attack in Australia from John Howard’s right-wing government.
The scariest global initiative goes by the name of General Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS). GATS are part of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and involve the trade and marketing of services between all member nations.
These agreements establish their own laws that include stiff financial penalties for violation of the GATS terms. These terms are set forth by government leaders and departments of commerce without input or approval of legislative bodies. These regulations can be at odds with local, state and national policies and laws. It is not clear at this point whether GATS policies and rules will take precedence over appropriately passed laws and regulations of any given country.
Posted October 10, 2007