Global Education

As charged by the school's mission, vision, and values statements, GPS believes that we have a responsibility to understand the historical and current perspectives of those around us--our local, national and international neighbors--and to accept and respect our common heritage as human beings.

 

 

The mission of Global Awareness at GPS is to help students understand and appreciate cultures and environments other than their own. Students engage in learning that broadens their intellectual horizons and deepens their understanding of the political, social, cultural, environmental, spiritual and economic issues affecting the world today. Thus, the GPS program intentionally cultivates active global citizenship, social involvement, and student engagement by helping our girls both to identify their passion and to learn how to mobilize that passion toward the greater good.

 

 

To be successful in college and as a citizen, students must understand issues that are currently affecting their lives. The GPS curriculum can be adapted to current news stories. History and Social Science teachers are modifying courses to include a focus on the past twenty-five years. Faculty members incorporate geographic location, cultural attributes and conflicts, political identity, and involvement in the global economy into lessons. Instead of enrolling in a course on the American Civil War and reconstruction, students may opt for a seminar elective entitled Global Conflicts that introduces the theme of civil conflict and explores those that have taken place in the Sudan, Northern Ireland, and Bosnia, among others. A new elective seminar course, Democracy in a Global Setting, examines the critical issues and problems in the world today through the lens of social justice.

 

 

The establishment of a Global Education Speakers Series for 2008-09 brought to campus Maurice Sonnenberg, an international advisor and former member of the Council on Foreign Relations; Chan Heng Chee, Ambassador of the Republic of Singapore to the United States; and Pulitzer Prize winner and syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts from the Miami Herald.

 

 

Today's students must be inspired to be “change agents” for the world, and GPS believes that this can be accomplished by instilling in our students a strong work ethic, educating them on global issues, and motivating them to make a difference. With the help of their teachers and families, GPS students in 2007-08 set records in fundraising to build a school to educate girls in Pakistan, assisted a female immigrant from Burundi, Africa, as she made her home in Chattanooga, and sent clothing and funds to a group that runs orphanages in Nepal and China. These examples are just a sampling of what our girls have accomplished. By gaining new understanding of needs around our world, students have been empowered to respond, and we can only imagine the impact that these young women will have on the world.

 

 

 

Chan Heng Chee, Ambassador of the Republic of Singapore to the United States and formerly to the United Nations, spoke to GPS students about an array of topics from education to politics. She was at GPS as a part of the Global Speaker Series.