Go Global Baby

I've got almost nothing today (because I was in meetings all day), except a link to The Globalist. I attended a workshop with the Editor-in-Chief, Stephan Richter, and found what he had to say about education to be really though provoking and life affirming. His mission is to get Higher Ed to "Go Global," that is, to start making connections all over the place between disciplines, between what goes on in the U.S. and elsewhere . . . basically to transform education in a way that meaningful prepares students for our Global World.

What I really liked about what he said was that we scholars are too "disciplinary" when most information these days is not. We teach "deductively" our disciplines to our students, but they really learn by induction. What gets them going is some interesting and relevant fact they can relate to, i.e. that Robert Palmer loves North African Music. Or, if you are teaching a class on Nation States, teach the information backwards: start with discussions about the importance or non-importance of the U.N. today and then work backward to the Peace of Westphalia.

I guess I liked him because he affirmed my way of teaching. I thought I just had ADD.