International Studies majors who are at their max of course requirements but need a good filler have endless options. But here’s an INTL course can easily recommend and happily say I’m glad I took.
Here’s why:

1. A Whole New Perspective
Before this class, I was sure that education was only a positive force in the world. Was I the only one? I’m not sure. But I remember being totally blind sided with all of the things we covered in class.

It started with a movie: Schooling the World.
Watch it. If it doesn’t completely blow your mind about your own preconceived ideas of education, I don’t know what will. Though the film takes a very harsh one-sided view of education, it does a great job of pointing out what we lose when education is imposed on a society.
“When we put children from traditional rural areas into school, what we’re doing is transitioning them from a non-cash agricultural economy where nobody gets rich but nobody starves into a hierarchical system of success and failure in which some lives may get “better,” but others will get much, much worse” [1.]

Then it was reinforced with Shields and Verger.
Shields covered topics from Education for All to Globalization of Higher Education. Shields very simply explained how education is a force, both positive and negative, that is facilitated and changed by globalization. He explained, “In terms of both culture and economics, education is co-constitutive of this process of economic and cultural globalization: it facilitates the transmission of world culture vales and integration of individuals and societies into the economic system, and in turn, educational policy and practice are continually reformed and redefined by these trends” [2.]
And Verger? Well.. not really. That was a tough read.
But I will credit Verger with good methodology. The book explained certain education policies, critiques them, then offers alternatives. The policies were explained usually through case studies that made them much more interesting and accessible.

And it ended with the country issue presentations.
Everyone in the class picked a country and an educational issue that was interesting to them. From racial discrimination in the Netherlands, to affirmative action in Brazil, to deaf schools in Vietnam; my ideas of education had morphed from positive promotion to dismal dismay.

2. Make Your Own Class
-This is one of the few classes on the UO campus that actually lets you design the course. You are responsible to speak up and decide what topics are important, what materials you want to read, and what you want to be tested on. You’ll be much more involved in a class that you personally help plan.

3. Appreciation
What I got from this class, more than anything, was a sense of appreciation. With any of the international studies courses I have taken, I get a rude awakening of how much I take for granted…
-A university education with professors who love what they do and have traveled the world and incorporated their knowledge into their courses.
-Access to unlimited resources from the library to the internet
-A lifestyle that allows me to be completely selfish and invest in only my individuality (at the moment).
-A warm classroom with a roof and seats. Or tapestries on the floor
-Knowing I have food, a bed, and friends to come home to everyday

And it’s not just an appreciation of what I already have and my own opportunities, but also an appreciation for other cultures. Western style of education has the unfortunate ability to wipe out non-Western culture and instill one Western consumer mega-culture.

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

[1.] Black, Carol. “Three Cups of Fiction”. Schooling the World Blog. 2011. Web

[2.] Shields, Robin. Globalization and International Education. 2013. Print.

There are countless numbers of organizations, projects, and policies aimed to improve educational quality. In my opinion, there are so many generalities in the content of these projects/organizations/policies. If you’re like me, you need something more straightforward and concrete to understand not only solutions to education issues but also the issues themselves. I needed something more specific than terms like “gender parity” and “decentralization” to help me grasp onto what is working in educational development. So here’s my attempt to explain to you a strategy that made sense to me. The effort to start teaching in native languages is a successful and understandable strategy to improve education quality.
Check out this blog to follow along with a strategy that I found useful and inspiring:

First off, we need to acknowledge that most of the world’s countries are multilingual, even though some languages like English are becoming dominant through globalization. Mother tongue language involvement is a bottom-up approach to education development that is showing some positive results. By bottom-up, I mean creating a strategy at the a local level to find a solution on a national level. Vietnam is experiencing this right now by involving local (or minority) languages in their schools [1].

The Ways Local Languages Are Being Involved:

–Bilingual teacher assistants instruct in the local language alongside the teacher, to increase material comprehension. The teacher then sets up the dominant language (in this case Vietnamese) as a second language learning [1].

—Teachers also benefit from the training they receive for the project by increasing their skills through information exchange with other teachers as well as experience with creating their own learning materials for the classroom [1].

–Children work with the teachers to make their own books which keeps the educational content relevant and interesting to them. With more interest in reading, comes higher reading skills and then eventually the ability to read in Vietnamese [1].

—Parents become more involved in the school through making school supplies and coming up with other tools for the classroom [1].

–The local or minority culture is recognized and celebrated in the classroom. Children are encouraged to display traditional clothing, cultural artifacts and instruments, as well as a place to talk about their cultural history [1].

Why all of this is important:

— There are studies that show that simultaneous bilinguals, those who are learning one language at home and one at school, suffer from learning disabilities [2]. Usually these “disabilities” are just a misinterpretation of their pace in school environment because they lag behind when they are trying to learn material and a new language at the same time. [2]. Introduction of the local language into the school system would eradicate this problem. In addition, numerous studies have been made about the benefits of bilingualism. These include improved cognitive skills, tolerant attitudes, creativity, problem solving skills, and metalinguistic awareness [2]. After hearing this, who wouldn’t want to be bilingual?

— Teaching kids in their home languages makes them want to go to school.  Education development is completely pointless if there isn’t desire from the children to attend or focus in school. Because of local language involvement, “student enrollment, retention and transitions have all improved” [1]. The question is now, how do we get the world to recognize this powerful change local language has on education?

To consider the powerful words of Nelson Mandela, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart” [3]. We need to educate children in their own language if we really want education to work.
¹

²

³

• Education forcibly molds people to become players in the global economy.
  -The idea of poverty is created by large capitalist powers to justify using globalism ideologies to infiltrate “third world” areas, labeling them as such, and then using education to mold people to fit into an industrialized economy. We as Western powers do not have the right to barge into these “struggling” countries and force our ways of life upon them nor is this plan working . President Evo Morales of Bolivia sees the evil first hand: “Globalization creates economic policies where the transnationals lord over us, and the result is misery and unemployment” [1. Good Reads. William Wordsworth Quotes. 2013. Web.] 
• Education is a cultural eraser.
  -Children are leaving their parents and homes to go to school and later get jobs in the cities. In doing this, they leave behind their cultural traditions that they would uphold if they remained at home. Rather than promotion cultural tradition, individualism becomes the new focus. “If have lost your history, you have lost everything.” [2. Good Reads. William Wordsworth Quotes. 2013. Web.]
• What has education done to us?
  -We should reconsider our view of what education does for our own society. School is mandatory and consumes a large chunk of our entire lives. We are pressured into moving onto higher education so we can become specialized in certain skills. Specialization is the key to the global industry: creating separate sectors filled by a large, “educated” work force to mass produce our goods, technologies, and ideas. Philosopher Mokokoma Mokhonoana claims “ “A specialist’s mind is a slave to his specialization.” [3. Good Reads. Quotes About Specialization: Mokokoma Mokhonoana. 2013. Web]
• Education is tearing us away from nature.
  -What could we be doing with all the time that we spend sitting in walled rooms, staring at a scribbled board, listening to the drone of a paid speaker? If life were like it once was before structured educational practice, we would likely be spending that time outside. Consider the connections and the values that our ancestors had.. that we lose everyday. In the words of romantic poet William Wordsworth, “ Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher”. [4. Padgett Tim, T. P.  A Voice On the Left. Time Magazine. 2006. Web.]

  

  

  
  
• Education isn’t in a classroom. 
  – I can say with absolute confidence that I’ve learned so much more outside the classroom, surrounded by the outside world, than I ever had in the classroom. Personal cultural interaction will teach a person much more than a textbook could ever. Before our structured Western idea of education, “traditional forms of education fostered stability” [1.Carol Black. (Director) Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden. 2010. Web.] It was direct experience motivated by survival, spirituality, and togetherness.

These are just five theories that look at the education we partake in and support in a negative light. There are a multitude of reasons why education is a positive and powerful tool for good advancement and change. All I’m asking is for you to rethink the one-sided view of education as a flawless and magnificent gem that will fuel world progression. It may be fueling progression, but is it progression in the right direction?