Prior to the school year, Summers-Knoll faculty and staff gather for our annual, two-week, August professional learning institute. During this time, we do a lot things: reconnect with one another, welcome our new faculty and staff, review our safety policies and procedures, set-up classrooms, and dive deeply into curriculum planning for the year. We take time to explore and discuss our school’s initiatives for the year, and with these initiatives in the foreground, teachers workshop their project ideas with one another to design and develop their year-long curricula.
As mentioned at our State of the School meeting last spring, in this 2024-25 school year, we’re working with the overarching themes of Global Competence and Climate Science.
Global competence is “the capacity and disposition to understand and act on issues of global significance” (Boix Mansilla & Jackson 2011). Globally competent students learn how to investigate the world beyond their immediate environment, recognize their own and others’ perspectives, communicate across differences, and take responsible action. As such, global competence begins with – and must be sustained by – an awareness and exploration of one’s own identity and who we are as individuals, but this sense of self is not cultivated in isolation or for the purpose of promoting individualism. On the contrary, an exploration of one’s own identity is meaningful only to the extent that it helps us better understand who we are in relation to other people and the role(s) we can play in the communities and world around us.
Studies and projects related to climate science provide a context in which globally competent students can take action on environmental and ecological issues. While the scope of a project can be highly local, such as making nutrient-rich compost for our own garden, the knowledge and skills students develop in such a project can transfer to – and impact – the health of the planet more broadly because soil is everywhere; it is literally the ground upon which we walk. Part of our work as educators is to help reframe conversations about climate science. It’s helpful to know Why Humans Are So Bad at Thinking About Climate Change so that, as educators and parents, we can help children recognize that our seemingly small efforts can have a cumulative effect.
There is power in numbers. As individuals acting collectively, we can make a positive difference in the short and long-term health of our planet. As Bodhi reminds us (photo above), simply put, we are a huge family.