A recent headline in the New York Times read: "Welcome to the Internet, the First Global Colony." I was struck by those words because they echoed a message that I have been sharing with educators in my travels across the United States and around the world as ASCD president. U.S. schools must become more globally focused if our students are to be successful in the worldwide culture that is rapidly emerging. Ironically, the Internet is playing roles in both creating and meeting the needs of a global culture.
In Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town, one of the characters says, "Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don't talk and think in English and don't even want to." The character's words exemplify, in many ways, the thinking of the past that we in the United States did not really need to understand the other cultures of the world.
Instead, the lives of most Americans have been focused entirely on our own culture, and that focus has carried over to schools. Most U.S. children continue to study U.S. history, beginning with the Mayflower, three times—in elementary, middle, and high school. Seldom is there enough time for in-depth study of the rest of the world. For example, students rarely learn about our largest trading partner, Canada, the country with which we share our longest border.
The study of the language of another country all too often has been what the brightest and best students do to gain admission to college. Even today, the choices of languages offered in most U.S. schools remain limited to European languages. The opportunity to study Asian languages, for example, remains the exception rather than the rule.
To emphasize our limited perspective, I often ask my audience to name their three favorite South American authors. After nervous laughter, most realize they cannot name one. Because even in our study of literature—one key to understanding and appreciating another culture—we have mostly focused on U.S. and British authors, while writers from the rest of the world have been ignored.
Admittedly, the 20th century was the "American Century," as the world's attention centered on the United States. But that century is now history, and the 21st century will be the "Global Century" because, with the click of a mouse, one can go anywhere in the world and interact with people from diverse cultures.
I am aware that access to the Internet has not been equal around the world, but that is changing rapidly. Although it is almost impossible to accurately determine the size of the Internet, I have seen estimates that between 325 million and 375 million people worldwide currently are online users, a number that is projected to grow to between 450 million and 500 million by 2002 and between 750 million and 800 million by 2005. Today, U.S. and Canadian citizens represent about 40 percent of those users, but experts project that percentage will decrease to around 25–30 percent by 2005 as Internet usage around the world continues to grow rapidly.
Lester C. Thurow, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, contends that the Internet has already transformed national economies into a global economy. Every projection for e-business I have seen indicates that the economies of countries all over the world will become more and more intertwined as our electronic interconnectedness grows. And as the Internet-driven global economy has arisen, a global culture has concurrently emerged on the Net.
Does that emergence spell the end of the diverse cultures that exist throughout the world? On the contrary, just the opposite is occurring. As the global culture has grown, local culture has been strongly affirmed. Nothing could exemplify this better than language. English is the predominant language of the Internet, but "as English becomes everyone's second language, their first language, their mother tongue, becomes more important and more passionately held," writes John Naisbitt in Global Paradox.
Therein lies a major challenge that schools will face throughout this decade and beyond. How can we continue to help our students become contributing citizens of our own society while helping them to become global citizens who understand, appreciate, and accept the diverse cultures of the world?
This is such an important issue that it will be addressed as a strand at ASCD's Annual Conference in Boston, March 17–19: "Tomorrow's World: Maintaining National Identities or Becoming Global Citizens?" Within this strand, presenters plan to explore "appropriate educational experiences to promote an international perspective and at the same time preserve a strong local and national character."
As one way of resolving this seeming dilemma, many of the presentations will highlight the use of the Internet in our classrooms to help our students connect with the world. Today, our students can easily communicate and share experiences electronically with people all over the world. No longer do we literally have to travel to another culture to connect with it.
Frances Cairncross, in her book The Death of Distance, summed up the global impact of the Internet this way: "People [using the Internet] will communicate more freely and learn more about the ideas and aspirations of human beings in other parts of the globe."
The Internet truly has the potential to connect cultures as never before. Now it is up to us educators to harness that potential as a tool for preparing tomorrow's global citizens.