Preparing Global Citizens

Santa Catalina students have long been globally minded, whether through academics, service projects, or their own personal experience. Now the school is formalizing what has been true for decades. Under the direction of Dr. Kassandra Thompson Brenot ’87, the new PreK-Grade 12 Global Education Initiative aims to develop the knowledge, skills, and empathy that students need to understand multiple perspectives and to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world. Upper School students will have the opportunity—through academics, experiential education, service, and reflection—to graduate with a Certificate in Global Leadership starting in the 2022–23 school year.

The launch of the initiative follows two years of dedicated planning and research. Kassandra is an action research fellow with two organizations: the Global Education Benchmark Group (GEBG) and the National (soon to be International) Coalition of Girls’ Schools (NCGS). Her research in both groups is on how to develop a global mindset among members of the Catalina community. With GEBG she is focused on faculty, and with NCGS she is focused on students, specifically in the language classroom. Kassandra explains, “It’s imperative that Santa Catalina adopt this approach to education in a very methodical, well-informed, thoughtful way, and the first step is assessing where we are and what we’re already doing. It’s been so affirming because we are doing so much already.”

The initiative’s goal is to tie together the many global-minded threads running throughout Catalina. Those threads are embedded in the curriculum across all grades. For example, prekindergartners learn to sing in Arabic and French, English students at all levels read books by diverse authors, Upper School science students study changes to the world’s oceans, and seniors delve into international relations. Long-existing clubs like the Environmental Club in the Middle School and the Peace and Justice Clubs in the Upper School are by nature outwardly focused. Service projects often have a global bent, especially this year, with efforts to support Ukrainians. Kassandra would argue that Santa Catalina has been global since its inception in 1850, when the new bishop of Monterey recruited a Belgian nun in Paris to found Santa Catalina, the first Catholic school in California. The first classes were taught in Spanish.

As a boarding school, Catalina is blessed with a global student body. “When I myself was a student, being here at Catalina completely opened me up to the world at large,” Kassandra reflects. “I was a day student in a public school from kindergarten through grade 8, and then suddenly coming to Santa Catalina I was with students from all over the world: Mexico, South Africa, American students who had lived in Saudi Arabia. It was amazing.”

Likewise, faculty and staff bring a global perspective to campus. Kassandra hadn’t realized just how much until she interviewed her colleagues as part of her research for GEBG. “I’ve been astounded to see how many faculty and staff members have lived abroad for extended periods of time, or grew up abroad and then moved to the United States, or speak languages fluently other than English. All of that shapes an educator’s mind and approach to education,” says Kassandra, a French and Spanish teacher who has worked and studied in Paris and Lima.

The first step in formalizing global education within Catalina is to give faculty and administration a common language to discuss it. “Then we can begin collaborating across divisions and disciplines and really lift up what we’re already doing,” Kassandra says. She hopes to work closely with faculty and staff in defining what global education means. “There are many different ways to define ‘global education.’ What’s important for us at Santa Catalina is to create the definition of it for our unique school based on our mission, our culture, our values.”

We have to ask ourselves, What are we doing right now to prepare our students in the best way possible to confront [the world's] challenges?

As the language around global education is solidified, the Upper School is launching the Certificate in Global Leadership this fall, with 24 students enrolled. The certificate is intended for students who want to dig deeper into global matters and to develop even stronger leadership skills. To earn the certificate, students must go above and beyond basic graduation requirements. Academically, students need to take a Level 4 or AP language class, a Senior History Research Seminar course such as International Relations or Dictatorships, and new specialty microcourses on topics such as global citizenship and diplomacy. On the experiential side, students must participate in relevant activities such as Model U.N. or TEDxSantaCatalinaSchool for at least two years, and must attend four lectures or presentations on global topics. Students are also required to engage in 15 hours of community service devoted to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 goals to achieve (at least in part) by 2030, including quality education for all, the reduction of poverty, and access to clean water. Finally, students are required to reflect on and share their experiences with the community, whether through presentations or articles for the school newspaper. Kassandra envisions the first year of the program focusing on teaching students what it means to be a global citizen and what it takes to communicate effectively and appropriately with diverse audiences.

In addition, students in the program are required to take part in a schoolorganized trip abroad. The inaugural trip will take students to Italy in April 2023. As part of the journey, students will take part in pre-trip learning and post-trip reflection to maximize their travel experience.

All told, the program aims to cultivate students’ global competency—the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and behaviors that students learn through intentional global education. With this set of tools, students can become ethical leaders and change-makers who promote the common good locally, nationally, and internationally. As Kassandra points out, “This generation is inheriting a lot of global challenges. We have to ask ourselves, What are we doing right now to prepare our students in the best way possible to confront these challenges?”