Learning with a global perspective
Ms. Hicks teaches 12th grade Language Arts and a combination class of AP Lanugage and AP Art History at Peachtree Ridge High School. She leads the 12th grade course team, is the Lead Mentor for PRHS, and serves on Gwinnett County Public School's Literacy Leadership Team.
Ms. Hicks received her undergraduate degree in Communications from Auburn University. Prior to her teaching career, Ms. Hicks worked in sales for major corporations such as The Miami Herald and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. Upon entering the teaching profession in 2003, she earned a Masters degree in Secondary Education from the University of North Florida. Her family moved from Florida to Gwinnett county in 2009, where she then earned an Education Specialist degree in Teacher Leadership from Piedmont College. She is currently finishing a doctoral degree in Multicultural Education at Piedmont. Ms. Hicks has devoted her career to leadership and culture in education. She has been a fellow of Yale University's National Initiative to strengthen public education, and most recently earned a fellowship with the US Department of State's Division of Cultural and Educational Affairs' Teachers for Global Classrooms. Through TGC, she studied global education along with a three week international field experience in Brasil.
Ms. Hicks loves to travel and cook! She has been married for 20 years to her husband, Steve. Her son is a Peachtree Ridge graduate class of 2015 and will serve the country in the US Navy. Payton is an 8th grader at Northbrook elementary where she plays basketball and softball. Her family enjoys barbeque and participates in competitive events with their team, One World BBQ.
Ms. Hicks received her undergraduate degree in Communications from Auburn University. Prior to her teaching career, Ms. Hicks worked in sales for major corporations such as The Miami Herald and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. Upon entering the teaching profession in 2003, she earned a Masters degree in Secondary Education from the University of North Florida. Her family moved from Florida to Gwinnett county in 2009, where she then earned an Education Specialist degree in Teacher Leadership from Piedmont College. She is currently finishing a doctoral degree in Multicultural Education at Piedmont. Ms. Hicks has devoted her career to leadership and culture in education. She has been a fellow of Yale University's National Initiative to strengthen public education, and most recently earned a fellowship with the US Department of State's Division of Cultural and Educational Affairs' Teachers for Global Classrooms. Through TGC, she studied global education along with a three week international field experience in Brasil.
Ms. Hicks loves to travel and cook! She has been married for 20 years to her husband, Steve. Her son is a Peachtree Ridge graduate class of 2015 and will serve the country in the US Navy. Payton is an 8th grader at Northbrook elementary where she plays basketball and softball. Her family enjoys barbeque and participates in competitive events with their team, One World BBQ.
international field experience Guiding question and reflection
I love to travel. When I was young and single, you never had to ask me twice to pack my bags. I began taking students to Europe through educational travel companies. Six overseas trips later it was obvious I needed more substance and experience in my adventures. So, I went on a search for teacher fellowships in hopes of finding a more enriching and diverse experience. I found it at the U.S. Department of State’s division of Cultural and Educational Affairs: Teachers for Global Classrooms. I applied in March of 2014 and received the award notification the following May. The year-long program included a graduate level course in global education, a symposium in Washington, D.C., and an international field experience with stipend. The program seemed designed just for me. The elements of global competencies in the classroom matched exactly and even enriched my existing philosophy for diversity, rigor, and equality of opportunity. The eight-week online course connected me with educators all over the country as we learned how to create lessons that instill a sense of global perspective in our students. Global competencies are grounded in the premise that the security, environmental sustainability, and economic development in this nation are inextricably connected with the security, environmental sustainability, and economic development of other countries. To that end, global competencies are strategies that can be used within any academic discipline to help students learn how to embrace investigation and research, recognize their own perspectives and examine the perspectives of others, communicate with a diverse audience in a wide variety of ways, and finally, to embrace and realize their own ability to make change in the world even if it’s only within their own community.
The impact of this course on my classroom and my team was immediate. We took some of our existing lesson plans and “globalized” them adding activities and texts that support these competencies like our unit on social media activism and “slacktivism.” Students examined some social media phenomena that produced wildly popular cyber responses such as Kony 2012 and the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS. They researched the power of social media to promote dramatic change such as the Arab Spring and more. They researched the ways social media can create “lazy” activists by simply clicking a “like” button or changing a profile picture to protest or support some social issue. They examined their own behavior. They researched how social media is used in other countries. All of this investigation led to an argument paper on social media’s effectiveness—or ineffectiveness—to promote individual action. Finally, they researched some organizations making change in the world and created promotional videos and ideas for social media campaigns to bring awareness and/or funds to these organizations. For every unit in 12th grade Language Arts, we collaboratively examine how we can expose the students to rigorous research, critical thinking, a variety of perspectives from around the globe, and offer an examination of how they can individually participate. We do this all by supporting our AKS on reading literature and informational texts, writing, and speaking and listening. We simply find the unique texts and issues as the vehicle.
The international field experience took me to Brasil for 18 days this past summer. In Brasilia, we studied Brasil’s education system from the state level as well as at the federal level. We visited private schools and federal institutes. We interacted with teachers and students about their experiences and shared our own. For seven days, I was in the southern portion of Brasil in an extremely small town called Nova Campina about three and a half hours south of Sao Paulo city. There, a host teacher escorted us to a variety of schools (all of which welcomed us with banners, song, and student performances—it was rather over whelming) and city offices where we met the mayor and were treated as foreign dignitaries. While that was all extremely exciting and moving, we also saw first-hand the poverty and challenges Brasil faces as a developing nation. We saw in the eyes of students their fervent dream to visit the United States—and perhaps stay there. We were immersed in Brasil’s culture and their insatiable love of life. We traveled to Salvador, studied its history, diversity, and participated in its festivals. Ultimately, I made lifelong friendships. A teacher of English in an Itapeva school and I have designed a joint project for our students. She teaches English through song. My AP Langauge students study words. We are going to use Bruce Sprinsteen’s Born in the USA, Springsteen performing a Brasiliano folk song in Portuguese, and skype to examine how both countries’ use art and music to address societal issues. The plan is a work in progress, but we hope to launch within the next few weeks.
This was by far the most profound experience of my teaching career. The fellowship ends Fall 2015 with the release of this Global Education Guide online as a resource for teachers seeking to learn about global competencies, how they can easily be a part of curriculum, and how the TGC program impacted my practice.
The impact of this course on my classroom and my team was immediate. We took some of our existing lesson plans and “globalized” them adding activities and texts that support these competencies like our unit on social media activism and “slacktivism.” Students examined some social media phenomena that produced wildly popular cyber responses such as Kony 2012 and the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS. They researched the power of social media to promote dramatic change such as the Arab Spring and more. They researched the ways social media can create “lazy” activists by simply clicking a “like” button or changing a profile picture to protest or support some social issue. They examined their own behavior. They researched how social media is used in other countries. All of this investigation led to an argument paper on social media’s effectiveness—or ineffectiveness—to promote individual action. Finally, they researched some organizations making change in the world and created promotional videos and ideas for social media campaigns to bring awareness and/or funds to these organizations. For every unit in 12th grade Language Arts, we collaboratively examine how we can expose the students to rigorous research, critical thinking, a variety of perspectives from around the globe, and offer an examination of how they can individually participate. We do this all by supporting our AKS on reading literature and informational texts, writing, and speaking and listening. We simply find the unique texts and issues as the vehicle.
The international field experience took me to Brasil for 18 days this past summer. In Brasilia, we studied Brasil’s education system from the state level as well as at the federal level. We visited private schools and federal institutes. We interacted with teachers and students about their experiences and shared our own. For seven days, I was in the southern portion of Brasil in an extremely small town called Nova Campina about three and a half hours south of Sao Paulo city. There, a host teacher escorted us to a variety of schools (all of which welcomed us with banners, song, and student performances—it was rather over whelming) and city offices where we met the mayor and were treated as foreign dignitaries. While that was all extremely exciting and moving, we also saw first-hand the poverty and challenges Brasil faces as a developing nation. We saw in the eyes of students their fervent dream to visit the United States—and perhaps stay there. We were immersed in Brasil’s culture and their insatiable love of life. We traveled to Salvador, studied its history, diversity, and participated in its festivals. Ultimately, I made lifelong friendships. A teacher of English in an Itapeva school and I have designed a joint project for our students. She teaches English through song. My AP Langauge students study words. We are going to use Bruce Sprinsteen’s Born in the USA, Springsteen performing a Brasiliano folk song in Portuguese, and skype to examine how both countries’ use art and music to address societal issues. The plan is a work in progress, but we hope to launch within the next few weeks.
This was by far the most profound experience of my teaching career. The fellowship ends Fall 2015 with the release of this Global Education Guide online as a resource for teachers seeking to learn about global competencies, how they can easily be a part of curriculum, and how the TGC program impacted my practice.
This blog is not an official U.S. Department of State blog. The views and information presented here are the grantee's own and do not represent the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program, IREX, or the U.S. Department of State.