The Global and Glocal Teacher Professional: Is there a Difference?

- PURITA P BILBAO, EdD

Global and Glocal Teacher Education

Global education has been best described by two definitions:

• UNESCO defines global education as a goal to develop countries worldwide and is aimed at
educating all people in accordance with world standards.

• Another definition is that global education is a curriculum that is international in scope which
prepares today's youth around the world to function in one world environment under teachers
who are intellectually. professionally and humanistically prepared.

UNESCO's Education 2030 Incheon Declaration during the World Education Forum established a vision
"Towards inclusive and equitable quality educational lifelong learning for all”

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 for Education is one of the seventeen goals of the United Nation's
SDGs.

These outcome targets bring together all member nations to expand beyond their geographical territories
for global education

By 2030, the seven outcome targets of SDG 4 must have been achieved. These are:

4.1 Universal primary and secondary education Ensure all girls and boys complete, free, equitable and
quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and elect learning outcomes

4.2 Early childhood development and universal pre-primary education. Ensure that all boys and girls have
to quality early childhood development care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary
education.

4.3 Equal access to technical actional and higher education. Ensure equal access for all women and men
to affordable and quality technical vocational and tertiary education including university

4.4 Relevant skills for decent work. Substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have
relevant skills including technical and vocational skills, for employment decent jobs and entrepreneurs.

4.5 Gender equality and inclusion. Eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all
levels of education and vocational trainings for vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous
peoples and children in vulnerable situations.
4.6 Universal youth literacy. Ensure that all youth and substantial proportion of adults, both men and
women achieve literacy and numeracy.

4.7 Education for sustainable development and global citizenship. Ensure all learners acquire knowledge
and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for
sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promote culture of
peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and cultures contribution
to sustainable development.

One of the means to achieve the target is to increase the supply of qualified teachers, through
international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially the least developed
countries and island developing states.

James Becker (1988) defined global education as an effort to help individual learners to see the world as
a single and global system and to see themselves as a participant in that system.

It is a school curriculum that has a worldwide standard of teaching and learning.

This curriculum prepares learners in an international marketplace with a world view of international
understanding in his article "Goals of Global Education Becker emphasized that global education
incorporates into the curriculum and educational experiences of each student a knowledge and empathy
of cultures of the nation and the world.

Likewise, students are encouraged to see the world as a whole learn various cultures to make them better
relate and function effectively within various cultural groups.

Thus, to meet the various global challenges of the future. the 21" Century Learning Goals have been
established as bases of various curricula worldwide.

These learning goals include:

1. 21st century content: emerging content areas such as global awareness, financial, economic,
business, and entrepreneurial literacy, civic literacy: health and environmental awareness.

2. Learning and thinking skills: critical thinking and problem solving skills, communication, creativity
and innovation, collaboration, contextual learning, information and media and event literacy

• ICT literacy: using technology in the context of learning so students know how to learn
• Life skills: leadership, ethics, accountability, personal responsibility, self-direction, others
• 21" century assessments: Authentic assessments that collaboration measure the areas of learning
 On the other hand, glocal education is about diversity, understanding the differences and
teaching the different cultural groups in their own context to achieve the goals of global education as
presented by the United Nations.

It is preparing future teachers from the remote and rugged rural villages in developing countries, to
the slum areas of urbanized countries, to the highly influential and economically stable societies of the
world for their roles in the 21st century classrooms.

Global teacher education addresses the need of the smallest schools to the largest classrooms in the
world. It responds to borderless education that defies distance and geographical location. This makes
education glocal.

Thus, glocal education provides equal opportunity and access to knowledge and learning tools
which are the basic rights of child in every community, locality within the global community.

Are our pre-service teachers preparing to provide glocal education in their respective future school
assignments? Do they possess a strong foundation of their rootedness in culture so as to blend what is
local with what is global? Will you be a glocal teacher who is a true Filipino teacher with a solid value of
nationalism and Filipinism but who is capable of addressing the global challenges and needs of educating
the children for the future?

B. From Global Teacher to Glocal Teacher Professionals

Looking back at the concept of global education, how do we define now a glocal teacher? Is this
teacher somebody who teaches abroad? Is this a person teaching anywhere in the world, and is able to
teach the 21st century learning goals? These are some of the fundamental questions that are raised
regarding global teacher as new concept of globalization and the recognition of localization in the same
concept is fast emerging and recognized

Hence, a glocal teacher is a global teacher who is competent and armed with enough skills, appropriate
attitude and universal values to teach learners at home or abroad but is equipped with both time tested
as well as modern technologies in education in any time and any place in the world.

A glocal teacher is someone who thinks and acts both locally and globally with worldwide perspectives,
but is teaching in the communities, localities, towns, provinces and regions where he or she is situated.

More specifically, a glocal Filipino is characterized by several qualities and attributes in addition to indepth
knowledge, functioning skills and embedded values. Glocal teachers:
• understand how this world is interconnected;
• recognize that the world has rich variety of ways of life;
• have a vision of the future and sees what the future would be for himself/herself and the students;
• are creative and innovative;
• understand, respect and tolerant of the diversity of cultures;
• believe and take action for education that will sustain the future;
• Facilitate digitally-mediated learning;
 • possess good communication skills (for Filipino teachers to be multilingual);
• aware of international teacher standards and framework, and
• master the competencies of the Beginning Teacher in the Philippine Professional Standards for
Teachers (PPST, 2017).

Further, glocal teachers in addition to the above qualities must possess the following distinct
characteristics and core values of Filipino teachers: (Master Plan for Teacher Education, 2017):

• cultural and historical rootedness by building on the culture and the history of the learners and
the place;
• ability to contextualize teaching-learning by using local and indigenous materials, content and
pedagogy whenever appropriate;
• excellence in personal and professional competence, leadership, research, technology, innovation
and creativity;
• responsiveness through social involvement and service, learner-centeredness, respect and
sensitivity for diversity and inclusiveness;
• accountability and integrity by being a positive role model with strong moral character,
committed and conscientious, credible, honest and loyal;
• ecological sensitivity by being resilient and a steward of the environment for sustainability;
• nationalism/Filipinism by being a responsible citizen and upholding the Filipino identity amidst
globalization (glocalization); and
• faith in the Divine Providence by being humane, just, peace-loving and respectful of human rights.

The need for glocal teachers is on the rise in several countries worldwide. Even developed countries are
in dire need of competent teachers who will teach in rural and urban classrooms imbued with the
characteristics and attributes of a glocal teacher.

Summary

Global education is a concept that brings us to understand the connectivity of each member citizen in
the planet without leaving behind the local foundations.

The advancement of technology shrank the world to a size that everyone can be reached. Because of this
development, we have to learn the diversity or differences in cultures in order to address the global
standards for education set by the United Nations. Global education requires future teachers the skills for
the 21" century so that all will be ready to play a significant role to provide educational access to all types
of learners all over the world.

However, globalization does not leave localization behind. The blending of both concepts as advanced
by Robertson (1992) underscores the rootedness and sustainability of education as part of the vision of
Education 2030. Thus a teacher who is global is also a glocal teacher and a glocal teacher can also be
global.