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During the last two weeks in March, GSF President, Dr. Chris Harth, traveled to Scotland with a team from St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Jackson, Mississippi (where he concurrently serves as Director of Global Studies and World Languages), on the second leg of a new three-tiered exchange program with Carnoustie High School, who sent their own team to Jackson last October.  As part of this new model for “glocal” studies and international exchange programs, the two international teams will travel together in June to a third site - Rwanda - where they will contribute on a local level to the construction of vocational college in Kigali and volunteer at a secondary school.

In addition to attending classes at Carnoustie and engaging in numerous cultural exchanges, the St. Andrew’s participants also engaged directly in “glocal” projects, working side-by-side with students from Carnoustie’s Eco Club on two local environmental endeavors: planting trees on campus and conducting a campus clean-up, which involved picking up litter on campus and along the walk-way to town.

Also during the visit, Dr. Harth participated in a national educational conference on “Developing Global Citizens: Bringing Africa into the Classroom,” which was sponsored by Learning and Teaching Scotland and attended by educators from more than 80 schools across Scotland.  Dr. Harth and Mr. Jim Bell (a teacher at Carnoustie, a partner in this new exchange, and the Chairperson of Level 8 Projects, a public charity in Scotland) presented on this new three-tiered model for international exchanges.  In addition to introducing the concept of "glocal citizenship" (which entails connections and obligations to multiple communities), Dr. Harth also discussed the notion of “ubuntu” (an interactive, identity dynamic that can be translated roughly as “I am because we are”) and shared some recent experiences putting that notion and the “glocal” approach into practice in Jackson, including with the reciprocal service involved with St. Andrew’s new exchange program with the  Hermann Gmeiner International College in Ghana (whereby international teams of students from the two schools perform joint local service both in Ghana and in Mississippi) and collaborative programs with local schools in Jackson that focus on global topics, particularly the joint program with Jim Hill High School and Jackson State University conducted at the International Museum of Muslim Cultures and the six-school simulation conducted with the Mississippi Geographic Alliance when internationally renowned geographer Harm de Blij visited in the fall.

More details about the trip to Scotland, including pictures, can be found on the Saints Travel Blog.  For more information about this new “glocal” approach to education and associated programs, please submit our online information form or contact us directly.