The Global Purpose Approach

Book excerpt: I created The Global Purpose Approach to help people gain the interest, knowledge, and skills needed for them to become more global-minded individuals. The idea for the book evolved from the need to enhance instruction in multicultural education so that people may be more knowledgeable, respectful, and appreciative of the geographies, languages, and cultures of people across the globe. The principles, content, and strategies that result comprise The Global Purpose Approachan instructional framework to introduce and integrate multiculturalism in schools, classrooms, private corporations, public agencies, and individuals daily lives. The purpose of The Global Purpose Approach is to foster multicultural awareness and education by helping to understand, respect, and appreciate similarities and differences across cultures. It consists of six guiding principlespurpose, environment, observation, perspective, language, and exploration (PEOPLE)together with an outline (NO FEAR) and resources for interactive and immersive learning of the core elements of culture. The intended impact of The Global Purpose Approach is to develop people who have enhanced knowledge and appreciation of diverse cultures and who can, therefore, interact and contribute innovatively in an interconnected, global society. Human resource professionals, organizational leaders, school districts, and teachers may use this book as a guide to integrate multicultural education in their departments, organizations, school systems, and classrooms. It also allows for educators to easily adapt the approach to fit their curriculum requirements and existing teaching plans and to implement it within their daily teaching. In this way, The Global Purpose Approach can be seen as a way to strengthen current teaching practices by adopting a set of philosophies and utilizing activities to foster more globally connected, engaged citizens without the need to fully revise or change.