Education for Global Citizenship: Doctoral Candidate Anna Rosefsky Saavedra, Ed.M.'06

After traveling the world working for EF Education, doctoral candidate Anna Rosefsky Saavedra, Ed.M.'06, a former world history teacher, became disheartened by U.S. students' lack of world knowledge and general indifference to how the United States impacts the world.

Saavedra believes that citizenship education enables students worldwide to live and work more productively and peacefully with their local and global peers. The United States trails behind many other countries that have fairly evolved civic education programs, she says. This summer Saavedra will travel to Colombia as a recent recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to explore and evaluate one of the Colombia's National Citizenship Competencies (CNCC) Programs, Aulas de Paz, or Classrooms for Peace.

In Bogota, Colombia, educators have already completed a number of studies on various components of the Aulas program. Part of Saavedra's job will be to evaluate the student, teacher, and parent roles in the program and provide feedback evaluations to date. "U.S. training-based knowledge of program evaluation techniques will help Colombian educators, researchers, and policymakers to better understand the strengths of the evaluations of the multiple Aulas components as well as the areas in which the evaluation design or analysis could be strengthened," she says, hoping her work will inform a blueprint for CNCC evaluations in the future, but also teach about more about civic education models in Colombia.

"The goal of the project is to develop a program evaluation and contribute what I have learned [at HGSE] to there," she says.

Throughout her graduate studies, Saavedra has consistently researched citizenship education particularly the CNCC education program. The Fulbright experience will allow her to potentially help American educators, policymakers, researchers, community members, families, and students understand how, why, and with what impacts effective, centralized civic education can and should be implemented. "It seems the U.S. has a fair amount to learn from Colombia," she says. "Columbia is far ahead of the United States at the beginning of the 21st century in terms of prioritizing and implementing civic education."

Saavedra has spent two years intensively studying Spanish in order to improve her research capabilities. Part of the review will require Saavedra to speak to many Colombians involved in the program evaluation design and implementation. She sees this experience as an opportunity to promote crosscultural understanding and communication. "My critical role will be as a good listener who develops trusting and empathetic relationships with my audiences," she says.

While Saavedra says she is still trying to determine exactly what her dissertation will include, she is certain that it will look at the role of civic education. "Civic education is not only about voting but performing community service and even throwing the trash away," Saavedra says. Ultimately, Saavedra's experience at HGSE and as a teacher will prove vital in Colombia. "I will bring my experience in an American high school history classroom, in an education business, as a HGSE doctoral student," she says. "Most of all, I would bring my vision of education in which students worldwide are prepared to live, work and address global challenges cooperatively with their local and global peers."