Interview

For those of you who don't know me as well, I am currently serving in my fourth year as the Dean of Students at Laney High. My primary role is focused on student discipline and protecting instructional time by providing a place for teachers to send students who may be disruptive to others learning. That being said, I spend most of my time in my office and monitoring the halls, and I have not had a great number of opportunities to spend much time in classrooms monitoring instruction.

Based on an administrator's reccomendation, I chose to interview Mr. David Holden, a 21 year veteran teacher at E.A. Laney High School in Wilmington. Mr. Holden is a very well respected member of our staff, who teaches U.S. History and A.P. European History.

From my conversation with Mr. Holden, it is clear to me that he has a very global approach to his thought process, and he can provide not only a wealth of information on current global events, but can clearly articulate how events relate or might relate to each other. The overall takeaway I had after our interview, unfortunately was that I sincerely doubt that his students get the full benefit of this, for one reason. Our curriculum. Mr. Holden feels that tying in current events to historical events helps students process and learn more effectively, but he admittedly feels that it is a great challenge to do because the demands of covering the entire curriculum in a short period of time, in preparation for state EOC testing.

Mr. Holden stated that he examines other cultures in each of his courses and draws comparisons between cultures and events throughout history. For example, he mentioned that he guides students to an understanding of the Global Economy and our dependence on oil, and how that impacts economic and political relations between the U.S. and other countries.

I gathered from our interview that Mr. Holden felt that the "global perspective integration" can peak student interest, by relating the past to events of today. Despite the fact that he rarely incoroprates what he terms "the most modern technology" in his instruction, he does take advantage of various opportunities to bring global perspectives into the classroom. For instance he aquired a Cultural Heritage Kit from a workshop and uses it to bring to life the experience for students their age and people in various European nations with regards to government, school systems, foreign relations. He also took advantage during two separate semesters recently where he happended to have exchange students from Germany, to gain additional perspective on these types of issues.

Mr. Holden immediately identified the limited time to reach goals and objectives with curriculum in the courses he teaches as a major constraint on efforts to further integrate the classroom. For that reason, he reccomends that pre-service teachers "look for opportunities...not always in the curriculum" to challenge students to put themselves in the shoes of their international counterparts.

Mr. Holden seemed to think that our (American) kids are "American-centric" and need more exposure to the traditions and history of other countries. He was very impressed with the students that came from Germany, and their understanding and appreciation for American and other cultures.

Overall, I sense that Mr. Holden feels very boxed in by the testing and the curriculum that is associated with it. Given more freedom, I feel that he would be VERY receptive to incorporating some of the technology and access to students in other countries that is taking place elsewhere. Bottom line, We won't get what we don't require!! If we want to incorporate more access to experience with international students, then it should be written into our curriculum!