With SLUH’s traditional foreign exchange and international summer experiences being no longer feasible given COVID, the Foreign Language Department has been using technology to bring global education to students outside of the classroom. 

Global education has been a focus of the SLUH Foreign Language Department for years, reinforcing the importance of exposing students to the world outside of our region and country and helping them connect. 

“We're trying to build experiences for everybody to have the opportunity to develop what we call global citizenship and global competence,” said Maria-Paz Campos, who is the Assistant Director of Global Education and teaches Spanish. “We want them to start questioning, ‘what is my local reality? What's my global reality? What's my place in both?’”

A major piece of this initiative is to expand global education beyond the walls of the language rooms and foreign exchange trips to include all aspects of a SLUH education. 

“There's really no part of what we do here as a school that couldn't have some kind of global ed angle to it,” said Director of Global Education Robert Chura.

“Global education is a lens that you can look through. Whatever we do in a curriculum—it could be physical education, math, or even science—we can look at in a new way through this lens,” added Campos.

One notable example of the extent of the global initiative in other classes comes in World Religions, a senior theology course taught by Robert Garavaglia, where students will have the opportunity to speak with a school in India about Hinduism.

“Mr. Garavaglia reached out to me and said, ‘I think it would be great if we could get someone to maybe talk a little bit about Hinduism,’” recalled Chura. “So we started a partnership with a school in India, and that's totally new.”

In addition to World Religions, areas like social studies are also becoming more globally interconnected, with Social Studies Department Chair Kevin Foy’s AP Economics class planning to speak with Russian and Chinese students about their country’s respective economic systems.

This movement towards global education is not just under the directive of SLUH, but is a desire shared by the Jesuit community at large.

“We're here to try to form you as future citizens of the world with every school in the Jesuit network working in developing this global education component,” said Campos.

The network of Jesuit schools has made new relationships with other schools across the globe possible. 

“A few months into the school year we started a partnership with a Jesuit school in Egypt, and we've been able to bring students from there into Arabic class, and they've also shown a lot of interest in these Jesuit partnerships and other projects that we've had,” said Chura. “Our already existing (partnerships) were kind of a starting point, but it's, it's, gradually built itself out to where we now have a really really thorough network.”

The greater Jesuit movement toward global education has also brought SLUH into the Jesuit Global Activism Leadership Summit happening later this year, where students can get into the driver’s seat and lead the conversation.

“We've got over 15 schools that want to be a part of it. It should be a great opportunity for our students and students from other Jesuit schools to work together on addressing these Social Development Goals laid out by the United Nations,” said Chura.

With teachers letting students lead the conversation, the One World Club in particular has taken a step up and been essential in helping SLUH students take the first step and become vocal in these global issues. 

“So we're stepping back as teachers and they (the students) are the ones coming up with, you know, solutions to some issues that we're experiencing like global level,” said Campos.

“As of the club, we’re working on human rights violations within St. Louis, and then focusing on housing and food insecurity,” said Karim.

SLUH has also become a member of the Global Education Benchmark Group, which offers different discussions and opportunities for exchange. 

“There was an opportunity for our students who took Arabic to work with some students; other students in the United States but also some students from Morocco, and the experience was really positive,” explained Chura.

New technology at school is cited in helping the language department grow the global initiative and continue to connect with students and groups outside SLUH.

“Another bright side is our ability to connect to experts or guest speakers that we wouldn't be able to bring here to school because they live in another country or for other reasons. It would be way too expensive to invite them,” said Campos.

“Virtual exchange has really been the godsend that has sort of saved us,” said Chura. “It has kind of taken off on its own now. Different language classes have different students coming in from our partner schools, either through Zoom calls, Flipgrid, or correspondents of some kind.”

While the language department recognizes that introducing these Global Education updates to the school will take time, Chura, Campos, and others are excited and ready to grow awareness and encourage action within the SLUH community. 

“What you do affects everyone at the end of the day so we need to work together on this, and that's kind of like the heart of this initiative,” said Campos. “We are responding to a need.”