Milton Chen on Global Competency Transcript
Card: Tch Teaching Channel
In Partnership with The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Card: Asia Society
Exert commentary by: Milton Chen

+++ 00:00:11 +++
Milton Chen: I'm Milton Chen. I'm a Senior Fellow at the George Lucas Educational Foundation.
Lower Third: Milton Chen
Senior Fellow
George Lucas Educational Foundation

+++ 00:00:15 +++
Milton Chen: I'm very excited about this shift, this transformation that we're engaged in. About three or four years ago, we began to see this new receptivity to change, innovation. The Age of Society videos do a very good job of showing how now providing students with a much more global perspective is so important. Businesses and industry talk about this a lot, companies are sharing globally, have employees globally. You will have to work with people from
+++ 00:00:46 +++
another country who speak a different language. So the Age of Society Schools are preparing students for that. I think it's very important. Up until now, having a more global perspective, even learning a second, or possibly a third language was always viewed as something extra-curricular perhaps. Not part of the core curriculum. But the Age of Society Schools are showing how this global perspective, learning about other countries, other languages, other peoples can be very much part of the common core. The Asia Society
+++ 00:01:16 +++
videos show how deeper learning is connected to the common core. We saw their emphasis on SAGE, S-A-G-E. Student choice is the S; Authenticity is the A; Exhibition is the E. So when students have to go into subjects more deeply, when they have to exhibit for their classmates and for their school, their teachers and their parents, provide that exhibition of their knowledge, that is a much deeper approach to learning
+++ 00:01:47 +++
than just the textbook based approach. And we saw in those videos how much they were motivated also to do that work. And student motivation comes along with student choice. Often students are asked to study things at the same way, at the same time. It's a very uniform approach to the curriculum. But through the Age of Society Schools, we saw that they're giving students choices over what they're learning. I was very inspired by the teachers that we saw. Many teachers who have been teaching for many years were
+++ 00:02:17 +++
taught to go in the classroom, close the door, stand in the front, and teach. And to ask other teachers for help was seen as a sign of weakness. To offer assistance and tips to a new teacher, a first-year teacher, was considered a sign of arrogance. We need to change the culture of teaching, and have teachers understand that there is a new horizon, a new landscape of teaching, and the role of you as teacher. Teachers are still critical to this. This is not as if
+++ 00:02:45 +++
technology can replace teachers. But we're learning that teachers, by taking on this new role as a learning coach, as a mentor, who also pays attention to the social and emotional side of their learning, that word of encouragement they can give. I was very inspired by these teachers who understood that. I think we're moving to a new educational system that's based on students at the center of their own learning. Teachers supporting them, creating learning experiences for them. As we saw in a number of these
+++ 00:03:16 +++
videos, the chance to travel abroad as part of your school experience is something that, again, was not thought of as being an essential part of it. But when you see what the students say about that, you saw them speaking with great conviction about how they finally began to understand who they were, their place in society, how, no matter who they were, as Americans in the world, they have had a privileged position compared to many-- most peoples around the world. So I was encouraged by that, and feel that that's the new
+++ 00:03:47 +++
kind of educational system. It's more global, it's more collaborative, and it is preparing students to succeed in this new world economy.
Card: Tch Teaching Channel
In Partnership with The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
#### End of Chen_ASTS.mov ####