One Educator’s Global Citizenship Certificate Story
Last year, Sarah Sisco enrolled in the Inspire Citizens’ Master Teacher Endorsement for global citizenship, now called the Global Citizenship Certificate (GCC). What she experienced has completely transformed her approach to planning her school’s strategic initiatives for school improvement.
“In the course we read Moving Beyond Busy by Greg Curtis, and this really had an impact on me,” says Sarah, who is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the American Community School (ACS) Amman in Jordan. “As a result of reading the book, I have changed all of our action plan templates at ACS. A typical template would have action steps, who is responsible, a timeline and a list of resources. We now look at inputs instead of resources (time, money and people), including meetings and professional learning needed. Instead of outcomes or evidence of success, we now have outputs, and we have added an impact column which explains how this action step connects to a greater school goal.”
Sarah is excited about how these simple, effective changes are allowing her and her team to think purposefully about what they’re doing within the big picture of what matters for the school.
“I feel I have a more well-rounded understanding of the factors that impact the education our students are receiving, and what factors might influence the world they will encounter after they finish school,” says Sarah.
Three other teachers from ACS also took the Global Citizenship Certificate course with Sarah last year, and they were able to meet as a cohort during their experience.
“I learned about the course from some new ACS teachers last year and because the focus of our action research is global advocacy, which is my responsibility, I immediately saw a connection to this program and was keen to enroll,” recalls Sarah. “I appreciated the breadth of knowledge in the course, and learning about the Sustainable Development Goals and future scenarios… topics I don’t encounter in my normal life as an educator.”
For her course practicum, Sarah made a decision-making tree to share Inspire Citizens GCC resources with teachers at her school. She created something akin to a “choose your own adventure” resource bank where teachers answer questions that lead them to appropriate resources. Because there were so many valuable resources shared in the course, this was a way she could organize them to be accessed quickly and easily by busy teachers.
Sarah has been teaching at international schools since 2009. Before she moved into her current role as Director of Strategic Initiatives, she was a Director of Curriculum and Professional Development and middle and high school language arts teacher.
The 2022/23 GCC course is starting October 15th. Learn more about the course and enrollment here.
Photos below: screen shots of portions of the decision-making tree Sarah created to share GCC resources with teachers at her school, and a photo of Sarah.
