Todd Noyes

I’ve always had a love of travel, new cultures, talking to people, and listening to what people have to say about their personal stories. Then one of my colleagues who is an alumnus of the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program[TGC] encouraged me to apply. I was excited to be a global education champion on a U.S. State Department program. It gave me a new level of credibility among my peers.

TGC helped me take things to the next level. When I got back from my field experience in Morocco, I began incorporating world views into my algebra and pre-calculus classes at Ithaca High School.

For example, in my World Population Unit, students select one country that has grown rapidly, one country that has a decreasing population, and the United States. They then collect data and analyze each country to determine the contributing factors that caused the populations to increase or decrease.

In addition, for the past three years my colleagues and I have organized an annual trip for students to visit Morocco. Helping the students raise funds throughout the year is a big part of this. Students from low-income households may not have a chance to travel to another county, let alone another country.

By emphasizing global competence, students are actually bringing other subjects and knowledge into the classroom to create more information than I would have expected. They’re also able to [make relevant connections] from other classes more readily.

For those students who've experienced a trip abroad, they say things like: “This is the best thing I’ve ever done,” "This has changed my views of how a Muslim family lives,” and “I’ll remember this forever!”