Opinion
College & Workforce Readiness Opinion

Jaime Casap Explains Why Global Competence Matters: It’s Not Really a Small World

By Jaime Casap — May 18, 2015 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Jaime Casap, Chief Education Evangelist at Google, Inc. shares why global competence is critical for students. Join him this Thursday, May 21st at 8pm ET/5pm PT for a special #globaledchat on Twitter. (Just search for #globaledchat to join the conversation).

With all due respect to the dancing dolls in Anaheim, it really isn’t a small world. It is a complex, multifaceted, diverse, and complicated world. Most of us hardly understand it yet the growing availability of the Internet and low-cost devices to connect to all the world’s information brings the complexity of this world to your fingertips. In 1995, just 1% of the world was online. Today, more than 40% of the world is. It took just 20 years to get three billion people online. This global achievement calls for all of us to understand what is happening around the world, why it is happening, and how it impacts us more than ever.

Local Companies, Global Competition
From a commerce perspective, gone are most organizations that do not compete on a global scale. In fact, there is a good chance our students will work for a global organization at some point in their careers. Even Paul Bond Boots, a small rural cowboy boot store in Nogales, Arizona, has a global customer base! With companies like Google, Facebook, Netflix, and others, most companies who are U.S.-based operate 24 hours a day on a global scale. In education, we often talk about how it’s critical it is to teach our students the “Four C’s": communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. While I agree these are critical competencies our students should master, what we miss in this discussion is an emphasis on another very important C, global competency.

Even if a graduate never works abroad or in a global organization, we still need to make sure our students are exposed to learning global competency skills. Since its inception, the United States has been comprised of people from all over the world. Whether you just arrived in the U.S. or are fifteenth generation, all of us have one common characteristic: we all have a First Generation story. And it doesn’t look like this trend is slowing. The U.S. continues to become more linguistically and culturally diverse. For example, in the next few years, one in four students in our public school system will be Latino. By the year 2045, the U.S. will be a “minority majority” country, meaning there will be more Americans who identify as minorities as a group than whites.

Organizations who will thrive in this global, diverse economy will understand how not only having a diverse workforce will be a competitive advantage, but having a workforce that understands and appreciates people from other cultures and one that can identify and acknowledge different points of view will stay relevant. Companies who focus on awareness and understanding of cultural issues at home and around the world will continue to expand and remain competitive. Having this awareness and understanding will help organizations to design products and services that appeal to a culturally diverse, global audience.

The Imperative of Global Competency
So what does a globally competent student look like? Globally competent students can see and understand the interconnectivity and interdependence between what we do here in the United States and the rest of the world. This means they will understand how problems facing the rest of the world impact us here at home and vice versa. Students who are globally competent have in-depth knowledge and understanding of international issues, an appreciation of people from culturally diverse backgrounds, and the knowledge, skills, and experiences to call themselves global citizens. Most American students, and especially low-income minority students, are behind their peers in other countries in their knowledge and understanding of world issues, world geography, and cultural understanding and experiences.

We often ask our students, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I do not believe that is the right question. First, all the labor forecasts predict that most jobs of the future haven’t been defined yet. Second, we already have jobs most students wouldn’t recognize, like “Bio-Medical Engineer” or “Sustainable Materials Architect.” Instead of asking our students what they want to be when they grow up, we should ask them what problem they want to solve. We should ask them to think about what knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to solve that problem. We should ask them to think about where they can get the knowledge, skills, and abilities they will need. We should ask them to think about how the problem they want to solve fits into the context of the world.

We need to create a generation of critically-thinking, collaborative problem solvers. Students who know and understand world issues. Students who understand political and socioeconomic systems on a global scale. Students who recognize and appreciate cultural diversity. If we really want to face and solve the problems of this complex, multifaceted, diverse, and complicated world, we need a generation of students who are strong in all the C’s: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and global competency.

“There is just one moon and one golden sun,
And a smile means friendship to everyone,
Though the mountains divide,
And the oceans are wide,
It’s a small world after all...”
- Walt Disney


In addition to his role at Google, Jaime serves on the Board of Directors of New Global Citizens, a global competency non-profit helping teachers integrate global education into the classroom. Jaime is also an adjunct professor at Arizona State University.

You can reach and follow Jaime on Google+ and Twitter. Follow Heather on Twitter.

The opinions expressed in Global Learning are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

College & Workforce Readiness The New FAFSA Is a Major Headache. Some High Schools Are Trying to Help
High schools are scrambling to help students navigate what was supposed to be a simpler process.
4 min read
Image of a laptop, and a red "x" for a malfunction.
IIIerlok_Xolms/iStock/Getty
College & Workforce Readiness Explainer Students With Undocumented Parents Have Hit a FAFSA Road Block. Here Are 3 Options
A FAFSA expert provides advice for a particularly vulnerable group of families.
4 min read
Social Security benefits identification card with 100 dollar bills
JJ Gouin/iStock/Getty
College & Workforce Readiness Infographic Students Feel Good About Their College Readiness. These Charts Tell a Different Story
In charts and graphs, a picture unfolds of high school students’ lack of preparedness for college.
2 min read
Student hanging on a tearing graduate cap tassel
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
College & Workforce Readiness How International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement Programs Compare
Both the IB and AP programs allow students to earn college credit in high school. Though how the program operate can differ.
1 min read
Marilyn Baise gives a lecture on Feng Shui and Taoism in her world religions class at Riverview High School in Sarasota, Fla., on Jan. 23, 2024.
Marilyn Baise gives a lecture on Feng Shui and Taoism in her world religions class at Riverview High School in Sarasota, Fla., on Jan. 23, 2024.
Zack Wittman for Education Week