News & Events

Thursday, February 19, 2009
by: Jim Daly, Ed.D.

For the 2nd year in a row the Center for Global Education will be welcoming several of our Deliberating in a Democracy (DID) partner teachers and administrators from Ukraine. Arriving on March 22 and leaving on March 29, the teachers will visit each of the New Jersey DID schools. In addition, they will shadow their NJ partner teacher for a day, observing and participating in a deliberation at the school. The visitors will also meet and work with teacher education candidates and faculty on campus, informally and by participating in classroom activities.
 
The Center has been working with these teachers and their students in Ukraine for two years. Hundreds of students in New Jersey and Ukraine have studied controversial issues of global importance, learned the skills of deliberation, and shared information and ideas electronically through discussion board work as well as by skyping and at video conferences. This visit, and a reciprocal one by several New Jersey teachers to Ukraine in April, provides a personal contact between the students and teachers involved in the project.
 
The Center is hosting a welcome dinner at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, March 23, at the University Club. In addition to the time spent in New Jersey schools, the visit is designed to provide cultural and governmental information and awareness. The visiting teachers will be meeting with local governmental officials, exploring New York City (with lunch in the delegates Dining room at the UN followed by a tour; a tour of Ellis island and Liberty island; and a Broadway show), and learning about life in New Jersey. They will be spending a home visit with their partner teacher and will sample a variety of New Jersey experiences (malls and outlet shopping, local recreation etc).
 
In late February, Center staff will be meeting in Santa Monica, CA, with DID site coordinators and administrators to discuss building on the success of the program. Ideas generated at this meeting will be shared at the International DID Conference in Macedonia this summer. At both events, Center staff will be sharing not only their work with DID programs in the high schools of New Jersey and Ukraine, but the pilot project with the secondary education program at Seton Hall University and the Borys Hrinchenko Kyiv Municipal Pedagogical University, as well as work being done at the middle school level.
 
For more information about the Center for Global Education or the visit of our DID partner teachers from Ukraine, please contact the Co-Directors, Jim Daly at dalyjame@shu.edu, Greer Burroughs at burrougr@shu.edu, or Maribel Roman at romanmar@shu.edu.

For more information please contact:
Jim Daly, Ed.D.
(973) 275-2726
dalyjame@shu.edu