A key to Global Citizenship is forming reciprocal relationships with individuals both near and far.  Relationships where people share ideas and responsibility for the future of our world.  This month we were privileged to share classrooms with two bright, thoughtful, and engaged South African educators, Portia Mahuma and Thina Tanpeki.  Portia and Thina represent the future of an optimistic generation that are coming of age in a post-Apartheid South Africa.  Thina and Portia, led lessons, shared their lives with our students, and presented thoughtful educational projects to administrators and faculty.  Special thanks to family hosts Katrina Madsen, Liz Andrews, Elizabeth Condon and Victor Ume-Ukeje.

Recently we also connected with John Gilmour, a visionary South African educator who helped to bring Thina and Portia to the United States along with 13 other teachers who worked in schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.  John is hard at work building out an initiative called the Global Teacher’s Institute.  His focus is on a social-emotional construct that serves both the student and the teacher as they engage with the heart of who they are as human beings, in conjunction with deep academic learning.  Be sure to keep an eye out for the Global Teacher’s Institute, it is a growing movement that seeks to positively influence South African and world education for generations to come.